


Build God, Then We'll Talk

by PolzkaDotz



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Deities, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Marco Bodt, M/M, Major Character Injury, Probably ooc, Writer Jean Kirstein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 09:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17139701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolzkaDotz/pseuds/PolzkaDotz
Summary: Jean Kirstein is obsessed with magical creatures of any sort, and always carries a notebook with his many notes on them. He's also part of a writer's Discord group were everyone is equally as obsessed, even though they don't all write the same thing.However, Jean's life changes when he's lead to a wounded fairy that needs his help.





	Build God, Then We'll Talk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mrah514](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrah514/gifts).



> WARNING: There is a description of Marco's internal injury. He broke a body part, but I tried to not be too graphic with it. Also, I have zero knowledge on what's happening in the series because i stopped reading a long time ago so if someone I put here is now evil... I'm Sorry.
> 
> Happy Holidays for all of you! This is the first time I've ever participated in a gift exchange, so it was a bit rocky. I've always wanted to be part of it, though, so I'm happy that I got over my fears and submitted. Hope y'all like it! 
> 
> Carter, I ALMOST SAID 'SCREW IT' AND WROTE BOTH OF YOUR PROMPTS BC I LOVED THEM EQUALLY. However, this one started to turn into this 24k monster, so I was like, "....maybe i'll write the other one as a birthday gift?" So hit me up if you want it lmao  
> I won't lie and say that I'm happy with what I wrote. There's many things that I wished I did differently but my skills were not up for the amazingness that was your prompt. However, I do hope you enjoy this! <3

Jean was a step away from tumbling into slumber when he was awakened by a fairly loud thump on his window.

His first instinct was to ignore it. Mostly because he was actually that close to sleep, thanks to a tiring day at the bookshop. Also because he lived in an apartment, on the fifth floor. When he went to bed, there were no trees close enough to bang its branches onto the glass, but Jean was a writer—a fantasy writer to top it all off. He had heard stories of trees sprouting out of nowhere, and magical shit happening because of it.

He also knew that this was not one of those cases, because magic wasn't real, although he'd be stoked if it was. So Jean figured it must have been just a bird accidentally flying into his window or something like that. Nothing to worry about.

Until the thump happened again.

Then a third time.

When the fourth one came around, he was already getting up and approaching the window to see—a bird.

A raven, to be precise. 

An _actual_ , real raven, who was staring right into Jean’s face.

Well, Jean did love to be right. He would've liked if it was a little bit less creepy.

Jean’s windows didn't have any screens anymore, not since his mom had taken the cat with her when she moved back to France. So when Jean tentatively opened the window (just a tiny bit, so he could try to scare the raven away, because that was the level of smart thinking his still half-asleep brain liked to entertain), the raven pretended to attack Jean's hand. The sudden movement made Jean jump a little and, without being held back, the window opened all the way. This let the raven inside his room and it started to fly everywhere. 

It wasn’t banging on any of the furniture despite his size, and it also didn’t seem to be particularly stressed judging from how lazily it was circling around in the air. Jean, sponsored by lack of sleep and Disney, mockingly extended one of his fingers up in the air like he was fucking Snow White—and then almost lost it when the _fucking bird ignored his finger and landed heavily on his forearm._

Jean’s mouth dropped. He had to adjust the position of his arm because he did _not_ expect that the raven would take the offer and land on him. Its talons looked like the sort of thing that Jean would not enjoy feeling clutch desperately at his arm. 

The raven looked at him for a few seconds before looking at his bedroom door. It did that characteristic bird thing, looking at Jean with his head tilted a little bit sideways, and then it went back to flying around in the bedroom.

“What the fuck,” Jean said, arm still in the air thanks to flabbergastery. The bird quickly landed on it, _again_ , looked at the bedroom door, _again_ , and then went back to flying.

Apparently, Jean was going to be following orders from a bird from now on, because he put his shoes on, not caring that he was still in his pajamas, then got his phone from under his pillow and slowly opened his bedroom door. The bird flew out of his room into his living room in an elegant arch, and then out of the apartment when Jean also opened that door. Jean locked his apartment door and looked at the flying bird and then to the elevator. Uncertainly, Jean offered his arm again, and the bird landed neatly onto it.

“Ok, ok, ok,” Jean said, waiting for the elevator’s door to open and his own brain to come fully online. He imagined the raven flying around in the elevator and made a face. “Hope you are not claustrophobic.”

The bird mimicked his “Ok, ok, ok” in an incredibly deep voice. Jean breathed deeply, trying to not freak out. He'd forgotten that ravens could speak, like parrots. 

When they got outside of Jean's building, the raven went back to flying. Jean followed it into the night, thankful that it was too late for anyone to be up to see a dumbass following a bird around. The night weather was a bit on the chilly side, but it served to leave Jean a little more alert of what was happening.

As in, he was following a bird.

Jean tried to think of possible reasons to _why_ a bird would need a human’s help while ignoring the fact that this was bananas. He knew a little bit about ravens, enough to know they were quite smart, but not much about how reasonably possible this situation was. He knew ravens were commonly used as symbols, and he was familiar with the pair that mythology said belonged to Odin (or maybe they were crows??? Jean didn't care enough about Norse mythology to remember), however real life knowledge about ravens’ behavior? Yeah, no such luck. 

Maybe one of their babies fell out of their nest and one of the parents saw that Jean was still sort of awake (through a window into a dark room. Sure, that all sounds logical). Maybe their _nest_ was what had fallen down (Jean was sure that that probably happened every day around the world though, without humans being recruited to help). 

However, Jean didn't even know if ravens _made_ nests. 

Another theory was that maybe Jean had accidentally eaten something bad and was now having hallucinatory dreams.

When Jean stopped walking, trying to remember what he’d eaten last and where it'd come from, the raven croaked and started to circle his head. Ravens were large-sized birds, you know, and this one was getting a bit too close to Jean’s face to be comfortable. Making a whole lot of noises that would probably be heard by _someone,_ too.

“Alright, alright!” Jean huffed, shaking his head in the hopes that the bird would give him a little more space. “I’m walking!”

The bird croaked at him again, longer and definitely angrier, but went back to flying ahead of Jean instead of around. Soon he realized they were headed to the small park that he had labeled adequate enough to spend a few hours writing on one of those sturdy wooden benches under the shade of the trees, even when the weather wasn’t too hot. Writing at cafés or anywhere near food was not really Jean’s cup of tea, but a park bench? Near enough the café so that Jean was able to leech on the Wi-Fi? That was just perfect.

Now that he had an idea of where they were going, Jean stopped looking up so often, trying to distinguish where a black bird was in a black, moonless sky and he hurried to the park. 

It looked eerie at nighttime, but also much quieter. Jean kind of expected to see drunk youngsters, but Trost was a city too small for that, so there was absolutely no one around. Some of the lights on nearby buildings were on, but not many.

The raven led Jean to the fountain. Jean’s theory of the possible fallen nest flew right out of the window because there were no trees near enough for something to fall on the fountain. The bird landed with its back to Jean and made a trilled and excited noise at the fountain’s water. Jean got close enough to be able to see inside the fountain, relying on the stars and the far away lamp posts to discern anything, and then he froze.

There, floating gently in the water, was a Ken doll. Jean was about to get mad at himself over how it had been a stupid idea to follow a fucking bird hoping it would lead to something interesting. Of fucking course there wouldn't be. 

It wasn't like Jean was asking for a lot. He just wanted something that could be written down in his notebook for situations and things that could be turned into magical creatures, when the fucking doll _looked up at Jean._

 _It's possessed!_ , Jean’s brain screamed.

“What the…” Jean scrambled to take at least two cautionary steps back, tripping a little bit on his own feet. The raven croaked angrily at him again, and it seemed like it was going to fly straight to Jean’s face (again). 

“Help!” the raven said, and Jean glared at it. 

However, because he didn't want to be attacked, Jean decided to approach the fountain, one hand clutching his apartment keys to use as a weapon if necessary and the other up to sort of shield his face.

The… doll (demon? Waterproof robot? What the fuck should he call it?) was still looking up in Jean’s direction, seeming as excited as Jean was about the whole situation—as in, not at all. It was too dark to see details, but the doll’s face was square with a beautiful jawline, short dark hair and _a pair of white butterfly wings,_ desperately fluttering in the water as if to help the… doll float, looking like it was too wet to really be of any help _._

Suddenly, it didn't look like a doll anymore. It also didn't move stiffly like Jean would expect from a robot—but that was something Jean couldn't guarantee as truth for every single robot since he was not excited enough about technology to keep up with how they moved. 

One thing was for certain though: the creature looked human, just on a tiny scale. With wings. 

_Well_ , Jean thought. _Maybe not a robot or a doll, but an actual fairy?_

“Ok,” said Jean, apparently too loud, because the… fairy flinched, and then made a tiny almost inaudible sound of pain. “I’m sorry! Oh god, I didn’t mean to startle you. Can you understand English?”

The fairy nodded, but didn’t make another sound.

“Ok, that’s great. That helps a lot. I’m going to scoop you out of the water, the is that okay?”

Jean waited for a nod, and then he sat on the rim of the fountain, not giving a single, flying _fuck_ about how this was going to wet his pajamas. Suddenly his brain caught up to the situation, and he felt like he should mourn the lost opportunity of recording this moment. 

He was saving a _fairy_. An actual, _real_ fucking fairy.

Well, maybe. He'd have to ask later what they were. 

“Alright. Do you want to grab my hand and then I’ll drag you up?”

The fairy thought for a beat and nodded again. Jean offered three spread fingers, and the fairy slotted their body between them, holding on with much more strength than Jean was expecting. Jean put his thumb on top of one of the fairy’s arms just to be safe, and then gently lifted them from the water. Jean was about to put them standing on the flattest part of the rim of the fountain when he noticed that one of the fairy’s legs was _definitely_ bent in a position it shouldn’t be.

It was ugly enough that Jean almost vomited. It was even worse because there was absolutely no blood—or if there’d been blood before, it had been washed away by the water. It was just multiples internal fractures that made the leg almost make a lightning bolt. 

“Oh, fuck, your leg!” Jean brought his other hand under the fairy, afraid that he would fuck up and cause them to slip, then fall right on top of… _that mess_. “Shit. I’m going to gently lower you, so try to put your good leg down first and then we’ll make you sit, alright?”

The fairy nodded emphatically, swaying minutely in the air from one side to the other. Jean was a bit nervous, so he did everything very slow, maybe too slow, but what mattered was that everything went absolutely fine. The fairy was safely sitting down, the broken leg gingerly touching the ground while their arms supported most of the leg’s weight.

The fairy was breathing hard, and Jean was sort of holding his own breath. He was 100% awake now and also hoping that this was not a hallucination. He would have so much _fun_ later convincing his writer friends, but especially _Eren_ ,that he’d met a fairy. And Eren could fuck right off if he didn’t believe him, because Jean would cherish this moment for-fucking-ever. Jean was on the brink of getting his phone out and recording a video of the fairy, just so he'd be able to rub it in Eren’s face when the fairy sort of bent forward a little bit and Jean was finally able to fully see and appreciate their wings. They were gigantic when compared to the fairy’s body, white and gray mixed with a few black spots on the top and at least four glaringly red spots on specific parts of the wing Jean. It was absolutely gorgeous. 

However, at the same time that Jean absorbed its beauty, Jean also noticed that the top part of one of the wings was _completely_ gone.

“Oh no,” Jean said, making the fairy look up at him. “Your wing.”

The fairy made a more extreme grimacing face, raised their head to look at the wing and then shrugged a couple of seconds later. Jean would _not_ have been that chill if 25% of his body suddenly wasn’t there anymore. 

Perhaps that was something that happened constantly with fairies. Perhaps this nonchalance came from a cultural experience that Jean didn't have any interest in adopting.

Thinking about the possible cultural differences made Jean realize exactly what he needed to ask. “Is there a place you need me to take you to? Like, some sort of… hospital or… I don’t know, a healer?”

The fairy slowly shook his head.

“Anything you need me to fetch for you?”

Another head shake. 

“Will your wing be okay?”

The fairy nodded.

“Can you fly right now?”

A head shake.

“Will it be fixed with magic?”

A nod.

“Will you need a place to stay while you heal it?”

Another nod.

Well…Jean was not stupid, despite what Eren was always screaming at him. He didn’t know exactly what kind of creature they were, although he had been calling them a fairy for this entire thing. He also didn’t know if this was the sort of trap where humans were targeted for being dumbasses, and he was on his way to having his life energy drained out of him or something, but this was also a too good opportunity to pass. It could be the worst decision of his life or the absolute best one.

He had a strong feeling about which one this was, though.

Also, Eren wasn't around to call him dumb, so… 

“Okay. Can I lift you again? So we can go back to my apartment?”

The fairy nodded, and then Jean carefully scooped them up. The raven was still watching over them, much more focused than how Jean assumed birds usually were. But then, it was probably a magical raven or something. 

Jean nodded towards the raven and said, “Thank you for coming to get me.”

The raven made a squeaky noise at him and then flew away.

Jean went back to his apartment, walking as slowly as he could so he didn’t jostle the fairy too much, trying not to get too outwardly excited about this situation. That was incredibly hard though, especially whenever he felt the white wings brush gently against the thin skin of his wrists as they fluttered in time with the fairy’s breathing.

Jean liked to believe he had been fairly lowkey about his excitement at least. 

He was still trying not to freak out externally.

Internally, though? At least three emotions into every direction. 

When they arrived at the apartment (and boy oh boy was it fun trying to open the door), Jean took the fairy to his bathroom and tried to make a somewhat comfortable bed with a lot of cotton balls and a tiny cardboard box that Jean found in one of the cabinets.

The fairy smiled when Jean presented the bed to them. Jean kind of died inside a little bit from repressing his future freak out.

Communication with the fairy was something that Jean had to think about before attempting to say anything. He had to keep in mind that only yes or no questions should be asked, but the first thing he needed to do was maybe put some thought into how he was going to discover what creature he was dealing with so he wouldn’t commit a faux pas.

So his first question was “Are you Fey?” which was met with a sort of surprised expression, and a very tiny nod. 

“Like all Fey, you can’t lie, correct?” This time, he got an amused expression alongside another nod.

“Alright, alright. Does man-made stuff interfere with your magic?” He got a no as an answer.

“Does it hurt you?” Another no.

“Do you want to take human medicine, then? For your pain?” The fairy thought about it for a minute, shrugged and then nodded. They figured out how many pieces Jean should divide the pill in so that the fairy would be able to swallow the Tylenol, then Jean stayed with them in the bathroom until they relaxed and slowly fell asleep. Then he turned off the light but left the door open when he went to his living room.

And that was when he let himself externalize all his feeling in something that Armin would’ve probably name “a beautiful contemporary choreography”, but he couldn’t care less about the name. He’d met a Fey. A member of the fair folk. A _real. Fucking. Fairy._

That he was HELPING.

Because he was basically SUMMONED by a possibly magical raven to help.

!!!!!!! 

Jean was pretty out of breath when he finally let his body fall onto his couch, sprawling in his cushions. It was a surreal experience that he intended to get the maximum of knowledge out of. He was going to become an _expert_ in one single kind of Fey creature, and he was going to write trillions of books about it.

But first, he wanted to do his own little bit of research on the Internet. He remembered quite a bit, since there were a lot of books that played with the narrative of the Fey, and the Seelie and Unseelie court, so he felt like he should know at least a little bit about it, but he didn’t really know a whole lot about _all_ the tiny creatures that made up the Fey. 

He remembered that one book described the tiny ones as incredibly powerful, and also responsible for keeping fairy mounds alive. 

Also, Jean thought it would be cool to find out what sort of butterfly the fairy was mimicking, if he was mimicking a real one at all.

Also also, if they could even be _classified_ as a fairy. Although Jean thought that this was something that should be asked to the fairy directly.

So Jean dived in deep to his research tabs. He had at least twenty-three tabs opened when he looked out of his living room window and noticed how it had already become brighter outside. 

He didn't feel particularly tired though. Jean felt energized. Accomplished. Not only did he know a lot more of what possible questions he could ask of the fairy, but he also knew what kind of butterfly wings they were mimicking.

It was an Apollo swallowtail, specifically the mountain version. They were already massive butterflies, but the fairy was definitely larger than the measurements Jean saw on Wikipedia. They were European butterflies, and that made Jean start to imagine what sort of migration the Fey as a whole had done to get a creature that was mimicking a European butterfly all the way in the U.S. Trost was definitely _not_ the natural habitat that would make it easy for the fairy to hide alongside other butterflies they had around. Jean couldn't even remember _ever_ seeing a butterfly _that_ big in their fauna. 

Another thing that Jean searched for and kind of fell into the rabbit hole of the resulting videos was how to help a butterfly with ripped wings. It was kind of neat to see how people were just… _gluing_ wings for the little insects to be able to fly again. Jean knew he didn’t need to worry about having to do anything like that though since the fairy had said that _magic_ was going to fix them.

“Holy fuck,” Jean’s voice sounded hoarse after being in silence for so long. “ _Magic is real._ ”

That made Jean get up from his browsing position and go back to dancing.

***

Jean gave farewell to the timeline where he actually went to bed and got a reasonable amount of sleep before having to go to his shift at the bookstore. Instead, he made himself a pot of coffee and went to the bathroom to ask the fairy some questions.

Nothing too invasive, of course. He just wanted to know how to properly address them without being too offensive. Also what he could do to make the fairy more comfortable while they healed. Also also, what they’d like to eat and other very important stuff. 

When Jean opened the bathroom door, he noticed right away that not only was the fairy already awake, but they were also in pain. Jean cursed a bit and frantically asked if the fairy wanted to eat something before taking more Tylenol. 

The fairy nodded, and Jean thought about what he had in his kitchen, frantically going through the options he fault would be accepted. “I think I have pomegranates somewhere. Is that enough?”

The fairy nodded again, so Jean rushed to the kitchen, searching frantically until he found it. He almost sliced his fingers off trying to open up two of the fruits, but Jean was able to put them on a plate and carry it to the bathroom. 

While the fairy ate a bit, Jean tried not to feel guilty about asking some basic stuff. He just wanted to know what pronouns the fairy preferred (male pronouns), and that he preferred to eat fruits of all kinds. And also, that his name was Marco.

Jean would never admit it, but he had been trembling a little when he asked for a name. He knew how the Fey were usually fickle about names in general, and Jean had no way of actually proving that it _wasn’t_ dangerous to offer his own name back to the fairy, but he just did it. 

And Marco just smiled kindly at him. Jean had been smiled at by a _Fey_.

Jean decided to break another Tylenol tablet apart just so he wouldn't show just how _aghast_ he was by the whole situation, and Marco smiled again as he swallowed the pieces. 

Goddammit, Jean was probably the luckiest person alive in Trost at that moment.

Unfortunately, not lucky enough to be able to skip work.

“So, I have to go to work.” Marco looked up at Jean and gave him a thumbs up (!!! Marco knew what thumbs up meant!!!!). Jean was quiet for a few seconds, only looking at Marco, who gazed back at him expectantly. “Do you want me to leave food nearby for you?”

Marco quickly acquiesced, but then Jean thought better about it. He would not be forcing Marco to eat _and_ stay in a fucking _bathroom_ for the entirety of the day. Jean was in no way a germaphobe; he had eaten food that had fell on the ground way after the five seconds of the Almighty Food Rules, but he still thought it was a bit gross to force Marco to be confined there.

“Do you want to move to my bedroom? I can turn my iPad on for you and you can probably use your hands or the Apple Pencil to use it. Just so you’re not bored, you know?”

Again, Marco nodded at him, and he looked grateful enough to make Jean feel bad for not offering that yesterday.

After Marco and his makeshift bed were nicely placed in Jean’s bedside table with all of the pomegranates Jean had in his fridge cut and ready to be used, and also with Jean's iPad safely on a stand (and Jean hoped from the bottom of his heart that that shit would _not_ fall on top of Marco), Jean had finally reached a point where he had no more excuses to stay at home. 

Besides his lack of excuses, he had around five minutes to get out of the door or he’d risk being seriously late. He was not really close to any of his coworkers yet since he'd literally started working there a little bit over three weeks ago and Jean also had the kind of personality that easily made enemies.

So, in the name of his future peace of mind, he changed clothes in the bathroom and said goodbye to Marco.

Who waved at Jean in farewell.

God _damn_ it, Jean was so fucking lucky.

***

Jean's shift at the bookstore passed _so slowly_. Slowly enough Jean didn't feel lucky anymore and was almost napping on his feet. 

Jean was stuck on the front desk, which he usually didn’t mind. He could secretly scroll forever on his phone while no one appeared with old books to buy, and Jean was good at spotting when someone was dangerously near. He usually preferred the possibility of having to deal with weird clients at the front desk instead of being stuck reorganizing the books that some dumbasses simply didn’t care enough to put back in the right place.

However, even with a fairly thick book about Fey creatures in front of him, Jean had enough time to be sluggish from lack of sleep and he was _bored_.

He wanted to be home.

He wanted his goddamn notebook, which he'd forgotten to bring in his rush to get to work on time.

Above all of that, Jean wanted to ask Marco about literally _everything._

Since he couldn’t, he tried to be okay with scrolling on eBay, looking for tiny miniature beds and trying to gauge from photos how comfortable those beds looked—which was… not at all.

Jean looked at his fairly empty workplace and sighed.

He opened Youtube on his phone and searched “How to make miniature furniture”.

***

After rushing through the fruit section of his favorite grocery store, almost forgetting to get some sort of ready meal for his own dinner, Jean hurried home. When he arrived, he left everything on his kitchen counter to be put away later and walked back towards his room.

Marco was already looking at the door when he entered, and he smiled at Jean’s breathless greeting. Jean smiled back, trying hard not to appear too weird and absolutely unsure if he was succeeding. He looked at the plate of pomegranates that Jean had left for Marco and saw that there was only a handful of seeds left in the plate, too far away from Marco to be able to reach them. His iPad screen was also dead, probably with a drained battery. 

“Huh.” Jean pointed at the empty plate, and then firmly laced his fingers behind his back. His hand needed to stop _shaking,_ goddammit. “Are you hungry?”

Marco’s face turns a red color a few shades lighter than the remaining seeds, but he nodded.

“Next time, do you want me to leave more food?” Marco, obviously embarrassed, nodded once more. 

“Alright. Do you want me to take you to the kitchen with me? I need to heat up my dinner.”

Again, Marco nodded, so Jean carefully lift him up, introducing the rooms of his apartment along the way just to fill up the silence, trying not to feel too inadequate. Of course, that was not how feelings worked, and he felt awkward the entire way, wishing he could just feed his own feet to himself literally, instead of only metaphorically.

With Marco carefully placed in the kitchen’s small round table, Jean started to put away most of the fruits he'd bought, doing his best not to be a chatterbox, but unable to keep himself silent. Jean was definitely uncomfortable, but every time he turned Marco was looking at him, clearly giving him his full attention. 

Jean tried not to look back too much. He was tired of his face heating up and cooling down.

After filling Marco’s plate with more fruits (strawberries and pomegranates and then, after Marco quickly devoured the fruits in a few minutes, Jean had chopped up some bananas and Marco ate those a lot slower), Jean put the lasagna he’d bought in the oven and sat in the chair closest to Marco.

Jean started to chatter about his work and what he did there. Without realizing though, Jean transitioned into talking about what he had been browsing on the internet during his shift. He was complaining about how _none_ of the beds on sale looked comfortable and how he had spent at least one hour watching videos of a small child that made furniture with cardboard that looked a hundred times comfier, and that was when he really noticed what he was talking, because Jean heard something that felt like happiness in the form of sound waves.

Marco had _laughed._

“Is that a mocking laugh?” Jean asked, trying to sound annoyed, but not really succeeding. Marco shook his head, but kept laughing. “Because I can leave you on your cotton bed forever, buddy. Just watch me.”

Marco laughed again and put both hands up to placate Jean. He must have moved the wrong way though, because he quickly turned an ugly gray color, and put his hand in the direction of his leg.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jean wanted to kick himself, but the words had already escaped. _Of fucking course_ he wasn’t okay, he had a fucking broken leg. “Don’t answer that, that was dumb. Do you want more Tylenol?”

Marco pursued his lips, before giving nodding weakly. Jean went to his medicine cabinet in the bathroom and, when he came back, he found Marco giving his leg an ugly look, huffing and puffing with a frustrated face.

“Hey,” Jean mumbled, chopping up the tablet, finally having the genius idea of getting a spoonful of water for Marco to swallow the medicine down. “Here it is.”

Jean watched Marco take the medicine and drink the water, feeling a bit like shit. Marco probably had been in pain the _entire_ day. If not that, at least throughout their entire conversation. And Jean just kept _talking_.

God, he was a fucking insensitive _idiot._

“I wish I could do something to help you.”

Marco stopped glaring at his leg and looked up at Jean. He couldn’t say anything though, because it wasn’t a yes or no kind of question, but his expression made it pretty clear that he thought Jean was doing _plenty_. Jean silently disagreed.

“May I at least search how people usually get their broken legs treated?” Jean asked. “It would make me feel a bit more useful. And maybe I'll actually find somethinguseful.”

Marco slowly nodded, and Jean sighed in relief. Jean kept eating his lasagna, trying not to watch Marco like a hawk. He kept yawning though, which in turn made Marco yawn. It didn’t take much longer for his eyes to start drooping, and Jean offered to take him back to his bedroom so that he could sleep without putting up with Jean’s eating noises. 

Jean watched Marco’s wings fluttering in his sleep at his bedroom for a long moment, long enough to feel he was being too creepy, and then he went back to the kitchen to finish eating the lasagna he wasn’t even interested in anymore. He knew better than to search “What to do with a broken leg” when he was eating though.

However, nothing was stopping him from searching how to make crutches. And also if he could buy a tiny, miniature wheelchair. He might not end up really taking anything useful from any of those searches, but just bookmarking everything made him feel a hundred times more useful than before.

After getting ready for sleep, Jean entered his bedroom as silently as he could, finally feeling the full weight of a sleepless night. He looked one last time to Marco, just so he could reassure himself that this whole situation was still very much real, and then he was asleep, too tired to even dream about anything.

***

Jean had been ignoring the Keybards Discord server for too long.

In his defense, he had spent the last five days of radio silence to his friends deepening his knowledge on the subject of something that was quickly feeding Jean's motivation to plan his new novel. 

Marco was incredibly savvy with technology, and Jean had created a Discord account for him just so that they could properly talk. Marco typed fast for someone who relied _a lot_ on the quality of Jean’s iPad's autocorrect.

Marco also didn’t appear to be even a little bit bothered by the millions of questions Jean had for him. That worked perfectly well with Jean’s desire to not be too annoying, so they spent a lot of time talking. Even when Jean was at work, they just kept sending each other messages. Jean’s boss had to actually call attention to his constant phone checking.

To be honest, Jean thought that he should be given a break. Of course, he was keeping Marco’s existence a secret, but he also sometimes just wished he could... tell someone. Anyone. Then he would have someone to be the recipient of all the energy he contained from trying to keep his cool in front of Marco.

That was not possible though. He didn't know if Marco would care about that, and he didn't know how to broach the subject. So Jean had spent the last five days with his phone out of silent mode since… fucking ever, and every time it pinged at him, Jean’s fingers spasmed with the want to just automatically _check._

Jean had learned a lot. For example, he learned what happened to Marco. Apparently, he had been flying (too fast, or something, Marco was vague in the details because apparently he was _embarrassed_ about it) when he accidentally collided with a raven—the same one that had went after Jean. Marco made sure to emphatically say it was his own fault but in the collision the raven, unfortunately, ripped Marco’s wing with his talons. Because of that, Marco couldn’t keep himself balanced in the air and when he fell in the fountain, he awkwardly hit his leg on the stone.

Jean tried to ask why the raven went after _Jean_ instead of someone who lived nearer the park, but Marco quickly changed the subject with something about how many fairies existed in Trost _alone_. Jean was smart enough to know when not to push the subject.

After all, it’s not like Jean wasn’t interested in knowing everything there was to know about Marco's entire world—or everything Marco was willing to share, to be precise. Also, he had a profound interest in the things that Marco naturally did thanks to the make off of his biology. For example, apparently, his wings had a terrible taste to ward off predators, just like the real Apollo butterflies. Marco also had the ability to use glamour to disguise himself, which was why nobody noticed any of the Fey that lived or flew around the city. 

Unfortunately, Marco couldn’t show himself off to Jean (although Jean _really_ wish he could) because his magic was being drained _daily_ to cure his injuries.

His wings had grown almost nothing, really. At least his leg had done some visible progress; although they were still broken, the bones weren’t visibly crooked from the outside anymore. Jean wanted to suggest that they should wait until the wing had grown enough for him to glue the little broken-off piece he had saved from the fountain, but Jean also felt like Marco would be extremely against it.

Jean had at least been able to convince Marco to keep his leg elevated, though. Which felt like an incredible victory in itself, taking into consideration how stubborn Marco could be. 

Marco clearly felt more comfortable now that he didn't have to worry about how to hold his broken bones. Jean tried not to blush at the little grateful look Marco had given after he had finished making the little elevation station out of popsicle sticks, hot glue and a tiny strip of gauze. It wasn’t like Jean had made the thing just to receive gratitude. However, the way Marco’s shoulder seemed to release a lot of tension after being strapped to Jean's creation was heartwarming, to say the least.

So it could be said that Jean was somewhat happy. However, when his phone started to incessantly ping and vibrate during his lunch break on the sixth day since Marco had entered his life, Jean’s happiness turned into dread. Instantly his brain was caught in a trap of imagining worst-case scenarios that warranted that many messages from Marco. 

Maybe Jean’s iPad had fallen from its flimsy stand right on top of Marco. 

Maybe _Marco_ had fallen down, but was still able to reach the iPad.

Jean could stay there thinking about all the too many options that were enough to make his heart sprint, but that wouldn't help anyone.

Jean barely chewed the food he had in his mouth before swallowing, trying to unlock his phone as quickly as possible and getting annoyed at his trembling fingers for getting the password wrong two times.

When he was finally was able to unlock it, Jean’s nerves calmed down and shortly went back up, but for a different reason. 

It was _not_ Marco blowing up his phone. 

It was instead Eren, Sasha, and Connie trying to get his attention in the Keybard server, _tagging him in every single fucking message_. 

Jean was, inexplicably, furious in a matter of seconds. It was one of those rages that sometimes took over him without any sort of complex reason. In this case, it was even more puzzling because the messages were sent from a place of obvious concern—well. Not from all of them. Eren made sure to say that “I was paid to ask if you’re still alive and to bug you until you replied”.

But Sasha’s and Connie’s?

“hey buddy are u alright? u’ve been silent 4 5ever” from Sasha, and “yo bro we can see when ur online? and ur ignoring us??? whats happening?????? ):” from Connie. So, overall, not bad messages at _all_.

However, when Jean glanced over at the content of the many different channels in the server he noticed that he'd been tagged multiple times in the last three minutes, not only by Connie, Sasha, and Eren. Jean also saw that they'd been collectively creating theories of what had happened to him. 

It wasn’t something that had started recently, either. In his scrolling, Jean found messages were he was _tagged_ because they wanted his actual input and expertise (a.k.a. everybody knew about the notebook he kept on magical creatures and they were a group of fantasy writers), and Jean had ignored it all. He actually remembered swiping away the notifications he received, but it wasn’t until he saw how much he had been missing that he felt _bad_.

Which in turn made him so fucking angry at himself. And Jean didn’t enjoy being angry at himself, he’d much rather seethe at someone else.

Jean took a deep breath and sent a message on the general channel.

jeanbo: _Hello, everybody. I know I’ve been silent for too long, but I was hit by a good wind of inspiration and I’ve been planning and researching for this new thing. Don’t worry about me._

Jean watched as _everybody in the channel started to type at the same time_ , trying hard not to feel ashamed. Sasha and Connie both sent too many exclamation points, Eren sent the crying emoji accompanied by “ugh you still alive? gross”, but Armin sent the most worrying message of all. 

futonkingarlert: _Happy that you found inspiration, but please don’t do that to us again! Your birthday is coming up, we wouldn’t how to get to you without directions!_

Jean’s breathing hitched as he stared at that, completely zoning out and not reading Christa’s and Hanji’s messages or watching what gif Ymir had chosen to send. The conversation kept going up on its own, but Jean was light years away from it.

Fuck.

His birthday.

He forgot his own fucking _birthday._

He also forgot the party he was supposed to be organizing because all of his online writing buddies had wanted to throw a party slash writing session in person as a gift for him, but that wasn’t his biggest problem. Oh no, his problem was that now he had to figure out a way to hide Marco from his friends for _at least_ two whole days since Armin, Eren and Eren’s adopted sister, Mikasa, would stay with Jean in his apartment.

“God fucking damn this shittery fuck,” Jean groaned, letting his head hit the wooden table.

***

Getting through the rest of his shift was interesting, to say the least. There was at least the small blessing of not being at the front desk today, and the mindless task of going through the books that, according to Jean's boss, had been damaged in a minor rain emergency a couple of years ago and trying to figure out what was still salvageable was… not bothersome. It allowed Jean the opportunity to think about what the fuck he was going to do after work and in the next few days until his birthday. 

He'd have liked to say that being there, separating wrinkly books to be sold cheaper was a blessing, but that wouldn't make him feel better—or help the time pass faster. Jean just sucked it up and took lots of deep breaths. 

When he got back from work with groceries—only for Marco, since Jean decided that afternoon that he was going to order takeout because he knew he wouldn’t have the mental capacity to cook and not chop one of his fingers off—he went straight to his bedroom. Marco greeted him with a raised hand accompanied by a grin.

Unfortunately for Jean, the greetings he gave back was bad enough that Marco’s face quickly turned into a frown. Marco picked up his iPad pencil and Jean took his phone out, sighing while he waited for Marco’s message. Jean sort of wished he was a better actor just so he could not deal with this.

“What happened?” Marco’s message predictably said.

“I forgot that some of my friends were coming over for my birthday in a very short time, and I don’t know if it’s a good idea for them to meet you, so now I have to think about how and where I could hide you from them.”

Marco looked at him with big wide eyes, almost dropping the pen in his haste to type. 

“WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR BIRTHDAY???????”

Jean stared at his screen for a long time, before raising up his eyes and looking at Marco.

Who the _fuck_ taught Marco that CapsLock was for screaming? Now that was a valid question. 

Jean knew his face must have been doing something funny because Marco’s eyes were cleary glinting, but Jean just didn’t know how to control his facial muscles.

“I can’t believe that’s what you got from all that I’ve said.”

Marco shrugged and started to type. When he noticed that Jean still hadn’t moved, he made a shoo gesture. They had agreed that in the name of fairness Marco had the privilege of writing messages as long as he wanted, but that he didn't mind if Jean did something productive while Marco typed away. 

Jean had more than enough time to call the Chinese restaurant to place his order and also put away all of Marco’s fruits already sliced or peeled. He went back to his bedroom and sat in his bed until Marco was done. 

marcothegreekgod: _Honestly, Jean, you seem to forget that I’m not in fact human. You know I can hide from your friends with my glamour. I still possess my magical ability to do that, which is the least I could do in order to pay my debt. You didn't simply save me; you fed me, you clothed me. You let me stay here, without paying and without asking for anything in return. I am forever thankful for you and your kind heart. I know that birthdays are a special occasion that humans celebrate, so the last thing I would do is prevent you from partying with your friends._

“But you can’t use your glamour!” Jean argued, almost getting up from the bed to approach Marco. That was simply _not_ a smart idea. 

Jean’s eyes kept going back to read “I am forever thankful for your kind heart” though. Jean wished it didn’t, just for subtlety sake. The already mentioned heart was having a tough time knowing if it was going to concentrate on being worried or overwhelmed.

In the end, Jean compromised and went with a bit of both. “You need to use your magic to _heal yourself_.”

Marco let out a very soft sound of annoyance, lifting his pen with too much force. He clearly lost his balance and almost fell out of his tiny bed. Jean’s heart leaped while his fingers spasmed from wanting to reach out.

marcothegreekgod: _Do_ not _tell me what I should do with my magic_.

Marco’s glare weighted heavily on Jean.

“That’s not what I meant and you know that!”

Jean was distracted by his doorbell announcing the arrival of his food, and he gave his phone a startled looked after seeing it was way later than he’d thought. Well… It didn't help that he had been more worried about his emotional roller-coaster than paying attention to the time. 

Jean looked at Marco helplessly but got up to go get his food, almost forgetting to pick up his wallet. His phone chirped at him while he handed the delivery guy his money, but Marco would have to wait until his hands were free.

After putting the Chinese food on the kitchen table, Jean fished his phone out of his pocket and read the message, safely away from Marco heavy and judgemental staring.

marcothegreekgod: _Let me give that as a gift for you, Jean. And don't you DARE complain about it._

Jean huffed but didn’t bother to keep on fighting. He sent an annoyed emoji back and ate his food right there in his kitchen table. 

He could do this. He could cope with the mental stress of letting Marco have his way. It would be totally fine to be aware of how far away Marco (in pain, probably) was from his friends at all times, worrying about what he could do to keep Marco from being harmed by any of them—especially Hanji, whom Jean knew would absolutely love to dissect Marco. 

Jean looked back at his food and grimaced. Maybe it was better to think about something else other than dissection while eating wontons.

***

The next few days were… challenging. 

Jean wanted a break from thinking altogether.

He just… couldn’t live like this anymore.

That was sad because it was a beautiful day. April 6th had arrived with weather that was thankfully warm but not too much, and he’d spent the last seven days running around, trying to get all the supplies he needed. It had been a recurring theme during that time that he kept forgetting something when he was out to buy stuff, and then he'd have to go out again, and it wasn’t like he had a lot of time between his shifts and his leisure time to waste traveling back everywhere twice, and he every day Jean thought that he was going to write a list of everything he needed _before_ going out, but… yeah. 

He was _so_ tired. _Too_ fucking tired to actually employ logic most of the time.

It didn’t help that on top of the stress of buying one fucking air mattress to put in his guest bedroom (apparently, Armin and Mikasa had won some kind of secret bet between them and were going to share the guest room, but Eren was going to sleep in Jean’s couch. Even though Jean had a queen size bed that he was willing to share, but apparently Eren _wasn't_ ), he had to also buy new bedsheets after discovering that he absolutely did _not_ remember where he’d placed his spares sheets. Jean alternated between his two favorite bedsheets, but he knew that he had another four missing. 

He either donated it alongside the shit his mother had accumulated, or his mother took if with her to France. 

In the end, it didn't matter. He still had to splurge on two new bedding sets, that came with pillowcases—Jean didn't know if he had any missing pillowcases too, but he'd reached the ‘Fuck It’ point. They had a cool geometric design and they would probably be useful someday in the future. 

Marco’s leg had healed a lot in those short six days. Enough that it inspired Jean to go online buy a miniature functioning wheelchair. Jean wished he had enough spare money to also buy crutches, but nope. He'd decided to buy a house, for some reason. Jean thought Marco probably wouldn't mind, and Jean felt sort of bad that Marco didn't have privacy. 

Also, he knew Marco would soon be able to walk around, from how fast his leg was healing up. His wing was still pretty much at the same stage since day one. If Jean would've guessed, he thought the magic was probably concentrating on the leg just so that Marco wasn't completely defenseless in the real world. He wouldn't be able to fly, but he would walk. Sooner than later, but probably sooner, Marco would be walking. 

His predictions became a reality in the fourth day. That was when Jean decided to go back on YouTube to watch videos on how to make crutches for dolls. He tweaked the materials and the construction so that it would actually support Marco weight and after four hours of hard work he was done. 

Marco then became _unstoppable._

Jean would get home and have _no idea_ where Marco was in the apartment. He didn’t know how Marco was getting down from tall pieces of furniture, but _he guessed_ that he was using magic to cushion his shenanigans. Maybe even trying to fly, although he obviously couldn't control himself in the air very much. 

Jean wanted to rant at Marco, just really make him aware of how he should be saving his magic to get better soon _goddammit_ , however he also didn’t want a repeat of Marco’s pissed off face. It was a tough dilemma that Jean had to live with. 

Not a dilemma at all, though. Marco was technically right. Jean had no right to say how he could or could _not_ use his own fucking magic. Be it to heal himself or behave like a hamster that was finally free from its cage, Marco was an… adult? Well, he was _decidedly_ responsible for himself. Jean just had to deal with it internally.

However, it was a bit bothersome to get home knowing that he was probably going to get _pranked_.

Jean would definitely this whole ordeal on boredom. Marco had been nothing but a sweetheart towards Jean at all times. That had lured Jean into thinking he was _not_ the sort of fairy that loved mischief—something that many of the books Jean had read about fairies said was a big characteristic of the species.

Oh, but was Jean proven wrong _daily_.

From weird, smelly substances finding their way into his shampoo, to toothpaste being the replacement in his cookies’ fillings, Jean had been dealing with a lot in the last couple of days. The house and the wheelchair had finally arrived, and Jean didn’t mind putting that house together for Marco, but he did fucking mind that he would have a piece of the house in his hand and then a second later it was gone. Probably under the couch, where Marco had taken to hiding, sniggering at Jean’s quiet, but frantic cursing.

It was _maddening._ Jean was absolutely fuming by the time he was able to finish building the fucking tiny house, but he also couldn’t really stay mad: Marco’s soft laughter was too gleeful for Jean to hold onto his grumpiness for long. It was an even harder battle to not straight up thinking this was all _cute_. 

The important part was that nothing that Marco was doing to him was _dangerous_. Just… extremely annoying. In a time where Jean could really use a little bit more _peace_ and _understanding._

What mattered overall was that it was April 6th, Jean’s birthday was in the following day, and Marco was happily living in his house (that Jean had placed in his own bedroom following Marco’s instructions). Jean had also been able to buy all of the food he was going to need in order to feed his friends for the weekend, and also the snacks for the writing session. Another important thing that he'd been able to do was to take one actual day off on the 6th, and then just enjoy his shiftless Saturday—thanks to his boss’ policy of giving birthday people their birthdays off, which was great—together with the rest of the bunch that decided to come celebrate his birthday with him. He knew that Hanji and two of their friends (who Jean knew too much information thanks to Hanji and their big mouth) were going to arrive last because Hanji had to finish something at their lab. The first ones to arrive though would be Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, all of them scheduled to arrive that night.

So when Jean arrived from work, he knew he’d have to sit Marco down and have a nice, honest chat about what he could expect from Jean’s friends. Marco seemed to be okay with that, waiting for Jean was right there on the ground when Jean opened his door. Like they were living in a cheap horror movie or something.

“That’s creepy,” Jean informed Marco, who just scoffed at him.

Jean left his keys in the keychain holder by the door, passing right over Marco on his way to the kitchen. He heard another tiny scoff and, when he turned around to smirk at Marco, he almost got hit in the face with a _flying_ Marco, currently operating with approximately 12% of his flight control.

“Shit!” Jean said, ducking when Marco circled around his head again, though it was, trying to harm Jean. “You’re going to hurt yourself again.”

Marco landed on the kitchen table—not neatly, definitely not safely since he stumbled a bit but was able to right himself—and gave Jean a smug look.

“You were lucky.”

Marco glared at Jean, quickly blowing a raspberry at him.

“Very mature,” Jean said, going to his bedroom to retrieve his iPad from the ground in front of Marco’s house. When he got back in the kitchen, Marco was fiddling with his phone. “The fuck you’re doi— _what the fuck_ , Marco, how did you guess my password?”

Marco shrugged as Jean looked at his phone, afraid to check if Marco had pranked anyone in his contact list. The chances were incredibly high, but after a quick look, he deduced that nope, nothing was different. Probably. Hopefully. 

Jean’s phone received a message from Marco that only said, _Magic_. Jean squinted at Marco, but let the subject go. 

“So, about the friends that are coming to visit,” Jean said, and Marco looked up at him with interest. “They are obsessed with magical creatures. Just like me. That's basically the reason why we started to talk to each other.”

Marco sent a message saying, _Are they famous like you?_

Jean could only hope that his blush wasn't noticeable. “I'm not famous, Marco.”

_But you're always answering messages from your fans…_

“Those are comments on the fanfiction works I put online.”

_Same difference._

Jean sighed but didn't insist. “ _Anyway_. These friends of mine… have never seen me in real life. We've talked for about a year and a half online, but all our previous attempts for organizing a get together like this was impossible. Our schedules never aligning perfectly. But now they did.

“The thing is, we got together because of our love for mythology, magical creatures, that sort of thing. Some of them never published anything other than fanwork, some had books published by legit publishing houses, and some are published independently, but we all like the same thing.”

_So they’d love to meet me, wouldn't they?_

“Well… Yes. They are a weird bunch though. For example, one of my friends loves everything to do with science. They specifically love books about scientists capturing magical creatures and doing experiments on them, so… I'm not exactly thrilled about testing if they'd behave in front of you.”

Jean felt kind of bad for throwing Hanji under the bus, but it was true. He had absolutely no way of predicting how they'd react. So he'd rather terrify Marco and keep him safe than bet that the gang would be able to act like adults in front of a Fey. 

Also, Jean childishly wanted to keep Marco just for himself. Sharing was not caring in this situation, or at least that was what his instincts were telling him. Knowing himself, Jean knew he'd come up with a more logical excuse later.

Marco, with a thoughtful face, started to type and then erase it. That went on for a few seconds. 

_So what’s going to happen?_ , he was finally able to send. 

“Three of them will arrive today. The rest will arrive tomorrow throughout the day. Then they'll all bring me gifts and we're going to talk about magic and maybe write. In total, it's going to be eleven people. Oh, and one fairy.”

_And I won't be allowed to show myself._

“Uhh, I would be better for your health.”

_Because it might be dangerous._

“Yes, it might.”

Marco made a thinking face, and carefully typed out, _Fine._

Jean felt relief washing through him. Now that he probably wouldn’t pass his birthday high key freaking out about Marco’s safety hopefully everything would go just fine.

***

Everything was _not_ fine.

It didn’t take long for Jean to receive a message from Armin saying that they’d arrived. Armin, Eren, and Mikasa lived in Maria, close enough to travel six hours in a bus. 

Jean lived near enough the bus station that they’d decided to rely on Google Maps to get to his house instead of getting an Uber or something since they said they didn't want to bring a lot. 

When they arrived at the apartment, Jean had to deal with the reality that they were _small_. Well, not Eren, he was just a bit smaller than Jean. Mikasa and Armin definitely we small, though. 

Armin went straight for a hug, which Jean tried not to be awkward about. Not because hugs were weird, it just had been too long since he'd had physical contact with another human being like this. 

Now Jean was missing his mom too. Great. 

At least Eren and Mikasa predictably did not offer a hug. Jean felt totally fine with that. He was not kin on crying just because hugging reminded him of his mom. 

He moved away from the door so they could come in. When Mikasa passed in front of him, he averted his eyes and tried not to cringe. Seeing Mikasa in real life almost was even weirder than talking to her online. His brain forced him to remember too many instances where his past dumb self had been incredibly bad at hiding the huge torch he carried for her, before discovering that she was not interested in him at all (or _anyone_ , really).

Honestly, Jean thought that did a good job pretending to feel totally fine. He'd shown Armin and Mikasa the way to the guest bedroom, while Eren had stayed in his living room observing all the trinkets, only to complain about literally every single one of them when Jean came back. 

Jean was sitting in his own sofa while Eren walked around, being too loud. Jean was getting a little pissed off at him and was ready to start snarking back when he noticed Marco peeking at the situation from Jean's bedroom door. Jean tried not to look directly at him, but his stomach dropped into what appeared to be a cold pool of uneasiness. 

_Please, Marco,_ he thought hard enough, wishing he'd asked Marco if he could read thoughts. _Do not do any fucking pranks right now._

Marco, who had decided to change into his wheelchair again, rolled it as close to Eren as he could (too close, in Jean's opinion) and _fucking punched Eren’s leg._

Jean's heart almost leaped out of his chest through his mouth when Eren jumped.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Eren yelled, taking two big steps away from where he had been standing. “Do you have fucking rats, Kirstein?”

“No, I don't,” Jean replied, slowly. 

“Don't fuck with me, Kirstein! Something touched my leg!”

“Well, it obviously wasn't the rats I don't have.” Mikasa’s head popped out of the guest bedroom’s door, and Armin wasn't that far behind her. “Before you accuse me, I didn't do anything either.”

“What happened?” Armin asked, frowning. 

“Something touched my fucking leg!”

“Stop yelling, Eren.” Armin kept tearing Eren apart for being too loud in someone else's house, and Jean wanted to smile. This was a dream come true for him. It happened constantly in the Discord channels, but live? It was something else. Now that his heart had calmed down, he could appreciate Eren’s disturbed face a little bit more. “You probably were imagining things.” Armin finished up nicely, brushing his flyaway hairs out of his face. 

“Mikasa, I'm not lying,” Eren pledged, approaching his sister in a flash of movement. Mikasa didn't change her expression, but Armin did. Jean wished he could see what face Eren was doing to make Armin react like that.

“Eren…” Mikasa’s voice was hesitant. She didn't need to elaborate in order to make it clear that she was not exactly buying it either. 

“Fine,” Eren said, sitting right beside Jean in the sofa, slouching at the same time that he crossed his arms. “Don't believe in me, then.”

Jean wanted to laugh so bad, but he couldn't. Armin and Mikasa were trading looks, something that they probably did a lot, especially when dealing with Eren, so Jean had space to search Marco with his gaze. 

Marco was giving him the widest grin ever. He blew a raspberry at Eren, and Jean knew Marco had only targeted him because of his rudeness towards Jean's home.

Jean killed his own smile pretty quickly though. It would not be a good idea to encourage Marco to keep doing that. 

***

The rest of the night predictably went downhill. 

Not for Armin or Mikasa, obviously. Since they didn't spend the first fifteen minutes of their stay in Jean's home shitting all over everything Jean owned, they were being treated fairly well by Jean’s ghost. 

Because that was what Eren had decided Marco’s punch was. His logic was incredibly flawless, obviously. 

“I mean, out of all of us, which weirdo would be targeted by a ghost? Of course it would be you with the haunted apartment.”

“That's strange,” Jean hummed, putting one hand up to his chin and scratching it, pretending to be deep in thought. “I've never experienced anything unnatural. However, you arrived at my home, starts to complain about everything and immediately starts being ‘attacked by the preternatural’. But sure, I'm the weirdo that definitely would be targeted.”

Eren squinted at him, lips pursed as if he'd just tasted something lemony, but didn't say anything back. 

He also stopped talking shit about Jean's apartment and started to talk shit about Jean during their dinner (pizza, because Armin had heard compliments about Jean's favorite pizza place for too long not to seize the first opportunity to taste it himself).

Marco was even meaner towards Eren after that, apparently keeping a tab on how many times Eren insulted him. All of the pranks in the basic book of pranks were being applied to Eren. His shoelaces were tied together under the table, every single olive that he took out of his pizza slices magically made their way back inside Eren’s mouth… Marco did at least ten pranks during the time it took them to eat pizza. 

The only downside of too many pranks one right after the other was that now Armin and Mikasa believed in Eren. They were watching Eren like harpies, looking more and more baffled each time they couldn't figure out with logic what was happening with Eren. 

“Ghost,” they both agreed, giving impressed looks to their surroundings. 

After ten pranks, Eren learned to keep his insults to himself, and also to think at least a little bit before opening up his mouth to say _anything._

“This is the most I've ever seen Eren thinking before speaking,” Armin said, speaking loudly so that the “ghost” could hear his appreciation. Eren scowled at him, but didn't reply.

When the time to sleep came around though, Eren was definitely looking very uneasy. He kept looking at Mikasa and Armin, who were one hundred percent pretending not to notice. Ten p.m. came and went, and so did eleven p.m. Midnight was fast approaching when Eren finally caved in, and said in a pitiful voice, “Armin.”

“Yes?”

“Can you tra–”

“Nope.”

“Why, though?” Eren whining made Jean want to sing out of satisfaction. Eren liked so much to pretend to be tougher than Jean in everything, yet he couldn't handle one single fucking ghost. 

“I don't have any interest in giving up my air mattress to sleep in a sofa.”

“But you won't be targeted by the ghost if you sleep alone!”

“Yeah, but then I'd be sleeping alone in a _couch_. I'm sure Jean's couch is lovely, but I prefer my air mattress, thank you. Besides, you'd be putting Mikasa at risk. Be a little less selfish, Eren.”

“Mikasa can defend herself,” Eren argued. When Mikasa wordless stare fell on him though, Eren’s bargaining smile went away. “C’mon, Mikasa. I don't wanna sleep alone.”

“Don't insult a ghost’s home next time then.”

Eren was about to restart his whining, when Armin said, “You can still share your bed with Jean.”

“What?!” Both Eren and Jean had appropriate tones of disgust in their voices. “Why the fuck would I want to share a bed with _him_?” Eren scoffed while giving Jean a judgmental look, followed close by a yelp of pain after something tiny had flown across the room to hit his forehead. 

On the ground, one of Jean's quarters for laundry day was lying innocently on the ground. Eren glared at the quarter for a few seconds and looked up at Jean. 

“This is your fault.”

“I'm not forcing you to put your foot in your mouth, man. You're doing it all by yourself.”

“I hope the ghost pull your feet at night.”

Jean smirked at him. “I bet ten dollars that the ghost will pull your feet at night.”

Eren opened his mouth, a snarl ready on his face, and then he thought better of it. On the ground, Marco made himself known to Jean with a tiny giggle. 

Jean stopped smiling. He wasn't supposed to be encouraging Marco, after all. Then he remembered the bet he'd just made and grimaced. Oh, well. Jean promised to himself that he wouldn't do it again. 

***

Sharing a bed with Eren was an Experience, to say the least. 

Eren trashed around the bed a lot, probably restless from fear of the angered ghost. Jean was not exactly a light sleeper, but he kept being awakened by Eren. He knew it was accidental—well, most of them were, at least. He was only purposefully woken up once, with a stinging slap to his exposed arm. 

Jean yelped and woke up cursing Eren automatically. However, Eren simply didn't seem to care. He was more preoccupied with cradling both his feet in his hands. 

“This is your _fucking fault_ ,” Eren hissed, looking around the bed with widened eyes. 

“The fuck did I do?” Jean's voice sounded gruff from just having woken up. 

“Gave the ghost ideas!”

It took Jean a moment to understand, but then he was trying to keep his smile away from his face. “Somebody pulled on your feet, huh?”

“ _This is not funny, dude!”_ Eren's voice sounded strangled by terror.

“Alright, alright,” Jean said, sitting up and capturing Eren's face within his hands. “I know you must be shitting your pants right now, but please don't dirty my sheets.”

Eren slapped Jean's hands away. “Stop mocking me!”

“I swear I don't wanna mock you, but you're so dumb that this is almost too easy! But whatever,” Jean shrugged and laid down again, showing his back to Eren. “Go to sleep without my stellar advice then.”

The bedroom was silent for thirty seconds, max, but it was enough to lure Jean to that not really asleep, but not exactly awake stage. Still, he was brought back by Eren's hesitant voice saying, “What was your advice?”

Jean groaned as if he was bothered by this shenanigans. “You haven't apologized.”

“ _What_.”

“You didn't say sorry for insulting not only my house but all of the things I have. Maybe that’s what the Ghost really wants.”

Again, there was a brief, but beloved moment of silence. When Jean's eyes started to close on its own, too heavy to stay open, Eren started to murmur a quiet, long, shaky, but honest apology. 

Eren was going all out for it. Jean barely could hear the words, but he hoped Marco would get the memo that he should just fucking stop because Jean really wanted to get a few good hours of sleep. When Eren was finished, Jean sighed and said, “Now try to sleep and don't fucking wake me up again.”

Jean heard when Eren went back to lying down, but he didn't need to look to know that Eren was basically a rock frozen in place. Clearly _not sleeping._ “Eren. _Sleep._ ”

“...Do you think it's going to work?”

For fuck's sake. “Yes.”

A beat of silence. Marco got out of his house and looked towards Jean, blinking innocently at Jean's glare. Jean frowned at him, trying to make it clear that he was getting upset for real, and Marco raised both of his hands up. Jean squinted at him but decided to believe that that meant Marco would give it a break. 

“Okay,” Eren said finally, and Jean felt him relaxing in the bed. 

“Yippie-fucking-hurrah. Now shut the fuck up.”

***

Apparently, Marco really did stop fucking around with Eren. Jean wasn't forced out of his not even _once_. Of course, both Jean and Eren still woke up in the next day with impressive dark circles under their eyes, but Eren was a lot more chipper. 

Jean wanted to be happy about his happiness, but then he remembered yesterday and scoffed at himself. Eren deserved to get fucked with more often, and Jean would stand by that until the end of times. 

Armin and Mikasa watched Jean and Eren drinking four mugs of coffee each at 9 a.m., but they wisely didn't comment on it. 

Jean had given Marco some pieces of fruit that probably wouldn't go bad too quickly for being out of the fridge, but he also knew that Marco could and totally would use his magic to get more food if he got hungry, especially now that it would be attributed to a ghost. 

So Jean watched Marco wander around his kitchen floor as if he was bulletproof or something, trying to not wince when Armin stepped too close to where Marco was passing. 

Jean didn't even want to know how stressed he'd be when his apartment was full of people. 

They spent their morning talking about basically everything over breakfast. To Jean, this was like their online convos, but worse because anyone could interrupt anybody. Eren, in true Eren fashion, was the one who most interrupted others, but he sometimes started to talk and then just… stopped, saying “Never mind”. No one insisted that he finished his thought, but Jean felt gleeful knowing that Marco had trained Eren to be nicer in one fucking night. It was amazing. 

After breakfast, Jean set up a corner of his living room to be the Gift Box (although there were no boxes there, just some decorative pillows his mom hadn't take with her). Mikasa and Armin put their gifts there when Jean made it clear that he wasn’t going to open gifts in front of anyone. 

The rest of their people started to arrive after lunch. The first ones to ring his doorbell were Ymir and her girlfriend Christa. They had decided to stay at a nearby hotel, sharing a room with Connie and Sasha since that would be way cheaper. 

Sasha and Connie, in true fashion for themselves, got lost in the short way from the bus stop to Jean's building. Not because they didn't know how to follow GPS directions, but because they had the attention span of a goldfish. 

“This giant squirrel started a fight with a pigeon, man!” Connie screamed at Jean's face when he opened his door, forgoing any kind of greetings. Sasha made her presence known by hooking her arm around Connie's shoulder, her chestnut hair making it clear that both of them had probably engaged in a little bit of running around. “We had to film it!”

“‘Had to’ might be a strong expression for this, Connie,” Jean said, getting out of the way so they could come in. “‘Wanted to’ is what you're looking for.”

“Whatever, that's just semantics.”

Sasha and Connie were grinning as they stepped into Jean's apartment, and they were readily greeted by the rest of the gang with excited almost screams. 

Jean's living room was looking a little bit too full. The alcohol was in his tiny living table that Jean had taken out of the kitchen and his friends were drinking it moderately, but still… Loudly. They were _so_ loud. Jean hoped that he wouldn't get a notice for too much noise from his landlord, but if he did… Well, it was his birthday. Also, Mikasa had a mean resting face, so maybe she'd be able to help him dodge some bullets. 

The subjects of conversation were varied, but when Christa asked Armin how their trip here had been, Eren butted into their conversation with a wild, “Forget about _how_ we got here, and worry more about _what_ we found here when we arrived!”

“Somehow I'm surprised about how rude you are,” Christa reprimanded Eren, turning to frown at him, “But that’s not a nice thing to say about Jean, Eren.” 

“Yeah, dude, it's his birthday. Be nicer!” Sasha had drunk only two glasses of wine, but her speech was already slurred. Jean sighed and finally accepted that his birthday was probably going to be a mess. 

“I'm not talking about fucking Kirstein!” Eren huffed and leaned forward in order to be able to whisper dramatically, “I'm talking about a _ghost_. Kirstein's apartment is fucking _haunted_.”

“Shut up,” Ymir said, at the same time that Connie and Sasha gleefully started to clap, demanding, “Ghost stories, ghost stories!”

So Eren started to talk about everything that had happened to him yesterday. It didn't take long for all parallel conversations to die, and soon all of them were paying close attention to Eren's tale. 

Jean wanted to be fucking mad, but the fucker had a good storyteller’s voice. Jean had to miss part of the story to go to his door and let Hanji and their friends (who introduced themselves as Levi and Erwin)in, and they were quickly filled in about the topic of the conversation. 

Some of them were skeptical, even with the videos that Mikasa had been able to record. Ymir was the one who doubted it the most, and she loudly proclaimed that it was just “A bag full of bullshit!”. It didn't take long for all of them to start offering their opinions at the same time, turning the conversation into chaos. The volume was rising, and Jean was about to yell at them to shut the hell up, but Hanji was quicker. 

“Alright!” They exclaimed, clapping once but loud enough to make the entire group look towards them. “There's only one thing we can do in this situation.”

Jeans felt like shit was about to hit the fan. 

Hanji smiled maniacally. “Let's talk to some spirits, shall we?”

***

Everybody had been on their phones for the last forty minutes looking up what was the best way to communicate with ghosts. Well, everybody but Sasha and Connie. They had gotten distracted by a Buzzfeed quiz about what kind of ghosts they would become when they died. 

Marco was in the corner of the room, watching everything with a glint in his eyes. Jean kept giving him warning glances, but he knew that this time it was not going to work. Marco had spotted an opportunity for incredible mischief, and no matter how hard Jean glared at him, Marco was going to do whatever he wanted. 

Which, in this case, seemed to be flying around in front of everyone who dared say that ghosts didn't exist and blow air at them. Mainly Ymir, who didn't seem to notice anything weird happening. Jean could see Marco frowning at her, and he was scared to see what Marco would come up to actually get her to notice him. 

Not too much longer after, Hanji exclaimed that they'd found the perfect way to communicate with the dead, but that the lights would have to be turned off and they'd have to sit in a circle. Levi and Erwin, who had been quietly murmuring to one another during the entire mess, decided to make it clear that they were _not_ part of their mid-twenties bullshit, saying that they were both going to stay close to the light switch, “Just in case you need the light to be turned on quickly.”

Jean was kind of jealous of them, especially because no one called them out on their bullshit. Admittedly they were too busy sitting in a circle with excited squeals as if they were five again. They started to call for Jean to participate too and, after saying that this was stupid, Jean sat in the middle of Armin and Eren, looking directly at Ymir's unimpressed face. 

However, Jean's attention was quickly caught by Marco when the fucker decided to _land himself in the middle of the circle_ , letting his crutches hold most of the momentum of his landing. Marco was looking around the circle as if this was _his_ birthday, not Jean's. 

Jean's breath started to quicken because he _knew_ Marco was about to do some stupid, but before he could call this whole thing off, Hanji said, “Turned off the lights!” and they were plunged into the dark. 

Hanji started to read something on their phone, but Jean was more worried about keeping up Marco’s shadow. Jean hoped his eyes would adjust faster, but in the end, it wasn't needed. Marco acted too quickly. 

Marco started to slowly approach Ymir's slouching for and Jean knew he should be worrying. A lot. 

When Marco started to fly, Jean worried even more. 

When Marco booped Ymir gently on the nose though, Jean felt his blood pumping with sudden adrenaline since Ymir's reaction was to slap Marco away—probably an automatic reaction, but it _did_ hit Marco, who flew across the circle and hit Armin in the chest, falling between his legs. 

Jean knew that Marco’s glamour had flickered off thanks to Armin's tiny gasp of surprise when he looked down, but then Ymir started to scream to turn on the fucking lights, and Jean used that distraction to reach for Marco and hide him as carefully as he could in his hoodie’s pocket. 

An excited murmur had started on the other half of the circle as Ymir started to explain that she had felt a child's hand on her nose (Jean almost scoffed at that, because Marco’s hands were infinitely smaller than a children's). On their half though, Armin was looking at Jean with wide eyes, stealing quick looks at Jean's pocket every now and then. 

“I hit something! It must have gone into Armin's or Jean's direction!” Ymir was almost bouncing in her place, looking at both of them with a wide, disturbing smile. “Did you see something??”

“I didn't,” said Jean, trying not to let his voice tremble. He looked at Armin, who was still looking at him with an astonished look. “What about you, Armin?”

“I…,” said Armin, hesitantly, looking down for a few seconds before turning to the room. “Didn't see anything either.”

Jean almost sagged with relief.

The others started to grumble sadly, but at least they didn't keep trying to talk to the ghost again. Probably satisfied that it must be something true since the most skeptical of the bunch had been converted. Instead of trying to get more supernatural experiences, they started to share the best books they've read about ghosts, but Jean didn't have any interest in whatever was happening. All the wanted to do was get up and go to the bathroom. 

“I'll be right back,” he announced to the room and didn’t wait for anyone to manifest before getting up and quickly shuffling to the bathroom, one hand staying close to his pocket just in case something bad happened _again_. When he went to close the bathroom door though, a foot slipped in the way and Armin forcibly got inside the bathroom as well.

“ _What the fuck!”_ Jean hissed, taking a step back. His bathroom wasn't exactly made to hold two people at the same time, so they were kind of cramped near one another. Armin's expression clearly expressed he didn't care. “People are going to think we're gonna fuck.”

“I couldn't care less what they think! This is a thousand times more interesting.” Armin did a dismissive gesture with his hand and kept his eyes focused on Jean’s pocket. “Come on, take it out.”

“ _Him,_ not _it,_ ” Jean growled in annoyance. Armin blinked at him twice before slowly nodding, apologizing quietly. 

Jean took a deep breath and carefully inserted his hand in his hoodie’s pocket. He felt Marco clutch at his fingers and sighed in relief. Jean carefully dragged Marco out of his pocket, automatically bringing Marco close to his face just so he could check if his wings were still okay. They seemed to be, and wasn't it a miracle that they weren't bent when he got hit by karma? 

Jean didn't have time to dwell on miracles, however. He was close enough to see how pale and sweaty Marco looked, and how his hands seemed to want to grab at his wounded leg. 

“Do you think you're more hurt than before?” Jean asked softly. It took a few seconds for Marco to process the question, which probably wasn't great, but after a while, he shook his head weakly. “Well, at least we have that good news, you idiotic butterfly.”

Marco glared at him half-heartedly, but it wasn't like he could exactly reply. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” Jean carefully put Marco near the kitchen counter so that he could rummage through his medicine cabinet. “I’ve been trying to tell you to behave for almost an entire day.”

“Wait, _he_ is our ghost?!” Armin's voice sounded too loud for Jean's liking, so he shushed him. Armin winced and started to whisper. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am,” Jean said, finally founding the little box of pain medicine he had already cut for Marco. “I hope that this dumbass has learned his lesson no–ow! You _bit me_???”

Marco was glaring at Jean, holding Jean's index finger near his face. Jean almost went to pull away, but then he remembered the pain medicine. They glared at each other for a few seconds before Marco took the medicine, and swallowed a lot of it, dry. Jean whispered, “Asshole,” but only when his hand was safely away from Marco. 

“Jean?” Armin said, making Jean finally stop his staring contest with Marco. 

“What?”

“Do you mind giving me an explanation right now?” Armin sounded like he was trying really hard not to sound exasperated. 

“A week and some days ago, I was woken up by a bird who lead me to the park, where I found this Ken doll floating in the water.” Jean pointed at Marco dramatically. “Only it wasn't a Ken doll. He was trying to get himself out of the water, but his wing was ripped and his leg was broken. I took him out of there and brought him home, so he could recover.”

“And what magic creature is he?” Armin sounded way too interested for Jean's taste. 

“Not my place to tell you.” Marco did a squeaking sound at that, which made Jean look at him with severity. “It is not, dude. Don't think that I'm just gonna go around spilling what you are for anyone.”

Marco’s hand slapping the hard surface of the faucet made a tiny sound in the bathroom, and Jean glared at him, thinking about how he was going to get himself hurt again for being an idiot. Marco started to point at his pocket, and Jean sighed, getting his phone out and opening the notes app. He held the phone up for Marco, trying to keep it as still as possible. 

_I trust your instincts._ Armin had approached Jean and was trying to read the note too. _If you think the person you want to talk is trustworthy, then I don't mind._

“It's not that simple,” Jean knew that he was making a pained face, but he couldn't exactly stop it. “It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of how easily people can mess up. I know that I'd never expose you, and I can guarantee that for you. I can't control other people's circumstances or choices. It's too dangerous.”

“I mean, is he in any immediate danger?” Armin butted in, frowning. “Like, is he running away from something or someone?”

Jean started to shake his head, but then he looked at Marco and noticed that he had guilt written all over his face. Jean gaped at him. “Really? You are in _danger_?”

Marco motioned for the phone again, and it took Jean a few heartbeats to raise it. 

_It's complicated._

Jean felt anger distorting his expression but, after a few moments, he just exhaled loudly. “We are going to talk about that later.”

“Jean is not in immediate danger though, is he?” Armin asked Marco directly and got a vehement head shake as an answer. “Okay. That's good to hear. Are you okay, though? Did Ymir hurt you too badly?”

Marco shook his head again, and Armin said a very soft, “I'm glad”, which got him a gentle smile. Jean tried not to give a name to the tightness that suddenly fell on his chest. 

“I almost want to lock you inside this bathroom so that you'll finally stop with your pranks,” Jean commented lightly, which earned him a frown from Marco, and a sigh from Armin. “I won't, though. But please, _please_ just stand to the side and observe everything. Or go eat a little more. I haven't seen you eating through the entire day. You need to eat in order to get better.”

Jean actually had no idea if that was true since he was just assuming that Fey biology worked kind of similar to human biology, but it did make Marco stop glaring at him. After a few moments of bearing Marco’s thoughtful face, Jean got a tiny acquiescent noise from Marco. 

“Thank you,” Jean said, maybe a little bit too much heartfelt, but he couldn't give a flying, dancing fuck. Marco smiled beatifically at him, and Jean felt the tiny change in the atmosphere that indicated that Marco was doing magic. 

When he couldn't feel any heat anymore, he turned to Armin and asked, “Can you still see him?”

“Yes?” Armin answered, looking very confused. “Was I not supposed to?”

“Nope, you weren't. He is using glamour. But maybe it only works if you don't know he's there.”

One quick glance at Marco and he got his theory confirmed by a single fast nod. Jean offered his hand to Marco, and he climbed on it, getting cozy on Jean’s palm. Armin opened the door and Mikasa was there, looking at him with a neutral expression.

“Don't ask questions,” Jean said, marching away. 

“And keep this a secret, please,” Armin begged, but Jean didn't hear Mikasa's response. He made a detour for his bedroom, where he put Marco near his wheelchair since his crutches must be somewhere in Jean's carpet. Jean looked at Marco for a few seconds, then went back to his birthday party. 

***

The party went strong until around two in the morning. They stopped discussing the ghost after a few minutes, and then they collectively decided to do two rapid-fire sprints, fifteen minutes each. 

After that, they talked about magical creatures in a more general sense. The reason for Hanji to bring Erwin and Levi clearly became evident when it was revealed that they were the artist and writer respectively for the widely famous comic “Titans”. 

“They talk so good,” whispered Connie at Jean, obviously more worried about making heart eyes at Erwin rather than make any sense. Jean shook his head at him but didn't say anything. 

Hanji was, as expected, more interested in asking questions about the biology of the creatures in everybody else's stories. Unfortunately for them, Jean and Eren had the same approach for writing magical creatures, which was “It's magic. It doesn't need logical explaining”.

Armin was more interested in sea creatures, with a special love me folks in general, so he just shrugged and said they probably worked like fishes. 

Connie and Sasha always preferred to write about freak shows and circuses, but with magical creatures, so how they worked on the inside was what they were interested in. 

Ymir and Christa just straight up wrote lesbian erotica, self-published. Whatever creature they found interesting, they wrote porn about them. They knew an impressive amount of weird facts about animal copulation habits. 

Out of all of them, Mikasa, Erin, and Levi were the only ones published by an actual publishing house. Hanji didn't have any interest in publishing their fanwork, Connie and Sasha sometimes self-published their things, but mostly they forgot about what they had already written and published, so their stuff was always chaotic. Armin was in the process of trying to get his first novel published, Eren was more interested in starting ten books and finishing none of them, and Jean… 

Jean was a perfectionist, alright? He was working on the best planning of all so that it could be the best story ever. 

Since Marco’s arrival though, Jean had worked less and less in his original unnamed book. Everything he wrote seemed dull in comparison to spending all his time getting to know one of the most interesting beings he'd ever met. His feeble Seelie and Unseelie story paled in comparison. 

However, there was one thing that Jean had to admit: this was the best birthday he'd had since his mother moved back to France and left her apartment to him. 

With two in the morning creeping on their horizons though, a lot of them started to flag down. Christa was yawning every thirty seconds approximately, Eren was slurring his words, and too many of them were just staring into space, far away from Jean’s living room. It didn't take long for all of them to start putting their own gifts on the Gift Box, hug Jean with enthusiastic wishes of happy birthday, and then high-tailing it to their respective hotels. 

Soon, it was only a half-asleep Eren, who didn't even changed clothes before getting in Jean’s bed, Mikasa, and a very alert Armin who was watching Jean like a hawk. Mikasa looked at them for a few seconds before saying good night, and closing the door to the guest bedroom quietly, but firmly. Armin was lucky that Jean didn't feel tired, otherwise, he would totally ignore how obviously Armin wanted to talk more with him. 

Marco came rolling on the ground and Armin looked at him with interest. Jean picked Marco up when he got close enough and put him onto the kitchen table. 

“Did you buy that wheelchair?” Armin sounded and looked amazed. 

“Yes.” Jean's voice made it clear that he thought it was a stupid question. “I couldn't leave him stuck on a single spot in my apartment, that would be messed up.”

“No, I asked because I thought they might have been handmade. Like the crutches.” Armin roamed around his pockets and then deposit both of the crutches on the table, and Marco gave him a grateful look before hopping to them and picking them up. 

Jean felt an unexplainable urge to hide his face. He was not ashamed of his work at all, but… Armin's knowing gaze was a bit too much. Jean couldn't even pinpoint whatever he was embarrassed that Armin might know, which was even dumber. 

Honestly, he just wished that Marco had been more prudent so Jean wouldn't have ended up in this place. 

“No,” said Jean, clearing his throat so that his voice wouldn't sound so strangled anymore. “I mean, yes, I bought the wheelchair, but not the crutches.”

“Interesting.”

Jean squinted at Armin for a few seconds, but changed the subject. 

“So, why am I not allowed to go to bed?”

“I mean, you _are_.” Armin looked from Jean to Marco and then gave a tiny, _unnecessary_ smile to Jean. “I just wanted to talk more with him, and I didn't think you would appreciate if we did it alone. Where you couldn't mother hen.”

Jean scowled at him, but looked away and didn't answer. Marco tapped Jean's arm to get his attention and asked for his iPad through gestures. Jean sighed but got up to take it from the living room, where he'd left it charging. 

When he got back with the iPad already opened on the Discord app, he started to get his phone out of his pocket. Marco was already typing something though, and Jean's phone vibrated with his message. 

_He has this app too, right?_ Marco waited until Jean nodded. _Then go to bed. I can stay up talking to him, but today is your birthday. You should rest._

Jean opened his mouth to complain against it, but then he just left his mouth hanging open. What could he say against it, really? “No, I'm not sleepy, I want to snoop here”? That was a lie because he _was_ tired, although he would _love_ to snoop around the conversation, only because curiosity would _kill_ him later. 

What other excuses could he use? “No, I don't trust you around Armin”? That was a lie. Out of all his friends, Armin was the one he'd probably trust the most to not do anything stupid in this situation. 

The truth was, Jean just wanted to stay close to Marco _always_ , and he was deeply… Uncomfortable with seeing Marco talking to others. Which wasn't like Jean usually behaved at all, let alone something normal or _healthy_. 

So in the end, Jean just and said, “If you're sure…”, which got him a nod from Marco and a sympathetic look from Armin. Jean ignored the look, but smiled back at Marco, “If you need me for anything, just send me a message. It'll probably wake me up.”

Marco snorted, already used to how much of a heavy sleeper Jean actually was. Jean didn't have the heart to tell him that he probably would stay up for a while just reflecting on how having Marco around had changed Jean's behavior into something Jean did _not_ like. It would be too cruel to Marco, after all. 

Instead, Jean gave Armin Marco’s ID on Discord and said Marco wanted to talk through that. Jean then went to his bathroom to get his pajamas and changed into them quietly in his bathroom so he wouldn't accidentally wake Eren up (though if there was someone who slept heavier than Jean, that someone was Eren) and watched some silly cat videos on YouTube for a long while. 

After thinking probably too much about it, Jean decided to send one single message to Marco. Not really waiting to see any sort of automatic answers, just sending it while he still had the courage. 

jeanbo: _What did you think about my friends?_

Then he looked at his phone’s clock, saw that it was 4:30 a.m., and decided to go the fuck to sleep. 

***

His phone vibrated around 6:30. He opened it to see it was an incredibly long message from Marco and he started to read it, but soon fell back asleep with his phone on his face. 

He didn't hear Marco getting inside the bedroom and then his house to sleep. 

***

The next day was spent cleaning the tiny amount of trash that his friends had left in his apartment, and also setting up his living room to record a video opening all the present that had been deposited in the Gift Box. 

When they were finished cleaning and recording, Jean took his friends out to a nearby cutesy diner where the food was good, cheap and they had a nice view of the dog park, which Eren loved. The main reason why he took them out though, was so he could leave the apartment for Marco to roam around a little bit and also stop wasting his magic. 

Also also, Jean was maybe too afraid to see what Marco really thought about his friends, so he was avoiding reading Marco’s message—which was easier to do if he wasn't looking directly at Marco because then he didn't feel bad. 

After eating, Jean took them sightseeing around the city, but mostly so that he could show off his favorite park, which he quietly told Armin was the park he'd found Marco. Jean was pointing toward the coffee shop where they could connect to the Wi-Fi when a giant bird just… plopped itself on Jean’s hand. 

Eren exploded with laughter. “Oh my God,” Eren wheezed, one hand holding his stomach. “Jean is the emo Snow White!”

Even Mikasa seemed to think the situation was funny. Eren took his phone out of his pocket to take a picture, and Jean didn't even feel like telling him to fuck off because he observed the bird and just _knew_. It was the same fucking raven that woke him up what felt like a lifetime ago.

While Eren complained how difficult it was to take a photo while laughing too hard, Jean kept his attention fixed on the raven. The bird's eyes still appeared to have that unnatural focus to them. Jean almost compared it to an actual human, but he didn't know if the bird would feel like it was a compliment. 

Instead of spewing bullshit, Jean approached the bird to his face, and said slowly, “He's alright. He's been recovering well. There's probably a few more days, maybe a week until he'll be able to fly properly on his own.”

Jean hoped the bird could understand English. Regardless of whether it could or could not, it croaked loudly to Jean then made a sound that almost seemed to be a proper birdsong, and flew away. 

Armin was giving Jean his million knowing look of the day when Jean turned back to face them. Mikasa was looking to where the raven had gone, and Eren was snickering while reading out loud their friends’ reaction on the Discord server. 

Jean stopped to think about what he'd actually said to the bird and sighed. Apparently, his brain had been keeping account of how Marco's recovering was going without actively thinking about it, and it even had an estimated time on how long they still had. 

Apparently, not much. 

***

When they got back to the apartment, Jean went straight to his bathroom to “take a shower”, but really he was just searching for Marco, who had apparently pulled a disappearing act. Neither Armin nor he had seen Marco when they first got into the apartment, and Jean was hoping really hard that Marco was just taking a nap under some furniture. 

Jean pulled out his phone to send him a message and was finally forced to read Marco's message (but just after he'd sent a worried, “Where are you?” to Marco). 

marcothegreekgod: _Your friends are honestly great! They have so much enthusiasm about magic and magical creatures, it's amazing! I honestly wouldn't mind if you wished to talk about me with them, because they obviously mean a lot to you. I also think that deep inside you know your worries are vastly unfunded. Armin and I actually talked about that too. Of course, I wouldn't want to be left alone with Hanji, but I would love to actually talk to them about my world like I talk with you. Talk to all of them about what my word is like, actually. Also, I hope you're not worried that I forgot about the human tradition of gifting during one's birthday. It's going to take me a few days in order to be able to actually give it to you though. Hope you don't mind!_

Jean was sitting on the lid of his toilet seat while he read it, and his chest was warm all over. It was nice to see that Marco approved his friends, to the point where he even wanted to know them better. Absolutely bonkers too. 

Jean suddenly had no idea why he'd thought it would be better to ignore this message the entire day. It was contrary to any expectation he'd had. 

It didn't take long for him to actually find Marco though, right there in his bathroom, asleep inside the bathtub. He was probably exhausted from using so much magic and then staying up until early morning with Armin (who was also tired, yawning the entire day). Jean looked at him fondly and felt bad about waking him up. 

Oh well. He'd let Marco sleep for another thirty minutes and then, if the others asked anything about why it took him so long in the bathroom, Jean would say he'd been taking a dump or something. Anything not to disturb Marco's peace. 

***

Eren, Mikasa, and Armin woke up early in the next day to go back to their homes.

It was amazing how dead Eren could be in the morning, even if he'd been the one to get the highest hours of sleep now that he was not stressed about any kind of ghost vengeance falling onto him after a whole day of nothing. He chugged three mugs of extremely strong coffee and had the audacity of looking even more sleepy. 

Armin kept giving Eren worried looks, while Mikasa appeared to care very little. Eren didn't seem to notice, just sat at Jean's sofa and waited until the other two were ready to go. 

Jean was still in his paid vacations, so he didn't mind waking up this early to see them out. He had the entire day to go back to bed, after all. However, it was impossible to predict when he was going to be able to see these people in the future. 

The last few minutes of them all physically together was spent with them trying to plan what to do when they inevitably met again. Places they'd wanted to go visit, eat, how much of their time they would spend writing, _where_ they'd go write… the had endless things to think about for their next get together, but they also had a lot of time until their schedules all lined up. Being an adult was too hard. 

Mikasa gave Jean a goodbye hug, and Jean from months ago would've died if he knew this was going to happen to his future self. Jean made a face at his thought process and hugged her back, trying not to make it weird. Armin went next, hugging Jean much more firmly than Mikasa. 

“I promise I will keep him a secret, okay?” Armin whispered, not even needing to tell Jean who he was talking about. “You can also talk to me if you need to vent, or anything.”

“Thanks,” Jean said, trying to keep away from his voice how touched he actually was. “I… I will keep that in mind.”

Armin smiled at Jean while he let him go, and went to flick Eren in his forehead to wake him up. Marco was chaotically flying right beside the front door, waving at Armin as he passed through it. Armin grinned at him, but had his hands too busy to wave back. Jean watched from his door until they got into the elevator and were gone. 

They were gone, and Jean felt his heartstrings tugging him into too many directions. He didn't know how much time he lost standing near his front door, but definitely a lot. He was only brought back to the present by his phone ringing softly, and Marco trying to get his attention by flying in front of his face. 

Jean picked up his phone automatically and said, “Hello?”

“I missed it, didn't I?” The voice on the other side said, and Jean instantaneously smiled. “You don't need to say it, I know that I fucking missed it.”

“One could expect that his mother would remember the most life-changing day of her life,” Jean said mockingly, like he always did. “Or at least program a reminder on her phone calendar, so she wouldn't forget, you know, Eleonore?”

“Shut up, I did put it in my calendar,” Jean's mom sounded annoyed and ashamed at the same time. “The problem is that I just wrote ‘Birthday’ so…”

“You didn't know who was the birthday person.” Jean was openly laughing now. 

“As I already said, _shut up_.”

“Very mature.”

Jean sat on his couch to keep bickering back and forth with his mom, and his heart felt a little better. Marco was sitting on the opposite side of the sofa, looking at Jean and smiling. Jean's mother hated talking on the phone, so the call wasn't long, but she was, as always, a balm on a wound that Jean wasn't aware he was carrying. 

When they hung up, Jean looked over at Marco, who was now trying to hover but still didn't have enough butterfly wing to do it perfectly. 

“Now, mister,” Jean started, crossing his arms and giving Marco the sternest look he was able to muster. “You’re going to explain to me what the fuck are you running from.”

Marco made a face, but did sit down while Jean went to the kitchen to retrieve his iPad. When he got back, Marco was sitting on the couch like a dejected child, and Jean wanted to laugh. 

“You don't need to look so miserable,” Jean told him, kind of feeling bad for wanting to laugh. “I know it's probably nothing bad, or you'd have told me before.”

Marco grimaced exaggeratedly, but then he just made grabby hands for the iPad, with a face that clearly said, “Let's get this done with”. Jean snorted at him, but obliged. 

While Marco took his time writing what looked like a Bible, Jean went through the group chat, searching for Eren’s photo and smiling slightly when he finally found it, saving it straight away to his phone. He'd have to remember to send it to Marco after this conversation. 

Right on time, his phone notified him and he didn't even have time to read the first words of the pop-up notification since his thumb automatically clicked on it as it appeared. 

marcothegreekgod: _Long story short, they won't search for me right now but they might if I take too long to go back. I got sent to the human world to accomplish a mission when I got injured. As I said, I'm not being hunted right now, but I need to go back to the mounds with the seeds I was sent to find in the human world. I said I would be able to find it in one month at best, so… cutting things a little close, especially taking into consideration how long I'll take flying back. But nothing dangerous_ should _happen to you because of it. Only if they come around and think that you are keeping me hostage. But I would intervene, of course._

Jean hummed as he read, nodding along. “Did you already found the seeds?”

Marco went back to typing. 

marcothegreekgod: _Yes, I did. I was actually on my trip back when I got hurt, and the raven that brought you to help me promised to guard the seeds until I was healthy._

“That's good, I'm glad,” Jean said, ignoring how he felt about how much time had already passed and that he was definitely heading towards his lasts days with Marco there. He pulled up the photo he'd just saved and sent it to Marco. “Look who I met up today.”

Marco looked at his iPad and laughed, tiny sounding but still cute. They stayed in silence for a few seconds, and Jean tried not to feel like his apartment was already too empty, because _it wasn't._ The chat chose that moment to explode with notifications, but Jean didn't check right away. They probably had finally watched Jean's video reaction to their gifts. He could always say later that he was finally utilizing the silence to write his new story or something. 

Because he was ignoring his notifications, Jean missed Marco's message. Marco had to tap his arm and point to his phone to make Jean open the Discord app and read it. 

marcothegreekgod: _How are you feeling now that they're gone?_

Jean sighed. “I feel a bit weird, but mostly fine. Did you really like them?”

Marco beamed at him.

marcothegreekgod: _Yes! Their enthusiasm for experiencing magic is incredible!_

“Until that enthusiasm turns around and slaps you to the ground, huh?” Marco at least had the decency of looking sheepishly at Jean. 

marcothegreekgod: _I still think it is incredible how they like something that they don't even believe it's true._

“Well,” Jean said, shrugging. “It all boils down to the fact that humans are boring. We don't fly, we don't shoot lasers… We basically can't do anything interesting.”

Marco made a face full of indignation towards Jean, and his typing with the pen was definitely more aggressive than before. 

marcothegreekgod: _I think you are wrong. Humans are kind, willing to help if you're in danger and incredibly generous._

“Not _all_ humans.” Jean blinked and then scrunched up his nose when he actually heard what he said. 

Marco, however, was giving Jean an intense look before slowly typing his answer. 

marcothegreekgod: _I know about at least one human that I've met who definitely is._

Jean couldn't do anything about the blush that colored his cheeks. To make himself feel less flustered, he started to talk about his mom and how much he missed her. Marco didn't complain about the change of subject, but every now and then he would give Jean an intense look. 

***

Even though he was spending incredible amounts of magic so that he could fly around, without relying on the wheelchair or the crutches, Marco's leg was completely cured around four days after Jean's birthday. His wing was even better, and Jean spent a lot of time staring at him, amazed at how _cool_ magic was, but also incredibly nervous for the day that Marco would approach him with a solemn face and say, “It's time for me to go, Jean. Bye-bye!”

Jean couldn't be gladder that he'd decided to take his vacations in such an opportune time. Not only he was able to spend his days just watching Marco doing flight training (and seeing how Marco had improved in such a short amount of time was inspiring and terrifying), but he also didn't need to spend his shifts at the library _agonizing_ over the day that he'd come home and Marco would be gone. 

It didn't help that his brain had taken to gift Jean with the cruelest dreams he'd ever had. From Marco flying out of his window after saying goodbye and being eaten by a bird (Jean had watched too many Vine compilations), to Jean just searching for Marco in his entire apartment and finally finding him dead, belly-flopped on the ground with his gorgeous wings in display, to Marco being captured and pinned in someone's insects collection… Jean's subconscious had apparently decided to prove to him again and again how good the power of imagination could be. 

Jean would wake up super tired, but still frantically search for Marco until he found him. Marco had been worried in the first few days, but then he simply stopped asking after too many “Nothing happened”s from Jean. 

He kept giving Jean the saddest eyes in the world, though. 

Even though Jean was having a tough time opening up to Marco, he still was so grateful for Armin's existence in this Earth. Not only was Armin quickly learning how to distract Marco, but he also was great at making Jean think rationally through his panic and come to conclusions that were based on _sense_ , rather than nonsensical fears. 

So it was definitely a big emotional hit when Jean got home and Marco wasn't there anymore. 

At first, Jean didn't notice anything different. He'd gone out to buy pasta because he was craving spaghetti for some fucking reason. Marco had waved goodbye at him from the air where he was lazily doing eight figures. Jean didn't notice anything different about him. 

Jean was gone for fifteen minutes, a little bit more or a little bit less. He went straight to the kitchen to get started on the spaghetti as quick as possible. He called for Marco, because he didn't really feel like staying in his kitchen alone, and didn't get any reply, obviously. He waited for a few minutes, his attention divided between watching the water boil and looking at the entrance to his kitchen, but there was no flying fairy around. 

“Marco?” he called again. 

Nothing. 

Jean looked at his spaghetti and decided that it could survive without him there for a few minutes. Marco was probably napping somewhere, but Jean still thought it was better to check. 

Later, he would convince himself that part of him already knew what was happening at that moment. Jean went into every single space he knew Marco liked to hang out in his apartment and found absolutely nothing. He double check to be sure and then, with trepidation, went to check his iPad.

The screen was dark, but when Jean woke it up, the iPad opened directly to the Discord app, with an unsent message all typed out. 

Jean's stomach dropped from dread. He didn't really want to read the message because he already knew what it was going to say. 

His eyes betrayed him though, and they forced him to absorb each little sentence written in that very long paragraph. 

marcothegreekgod: _Jean, I'm sorry to go so abruptly. Seriously, this was not how I intended for this to happen. I meant to give you a proper goodbye, a proper thank you and a proper blessing to repay your utmost kindness, however, it wasn't possible. My leg and my wings are completely healed, and I can't stall my trip back any longer and keep my conscience clean. I hope you do understand that I_ am _grateful, that you_ are _one of the best people I'll ever meet in my life, and for these reasons, I wouldn't be able to face you and say my goodbyes. I want you to know that I'll always be with you and that the days spent as your guests were incredible. Without everything you've done for me, it would've taken me at least two months to be completely healed, and that's something I'll never be able to repay. I've loved your enthusiasm for magic and for learning more about it, and I hope you find the courage to not only write, but publish and bring your dreams to the realm of reality with your story. I know you will be undoubtedly successful, and I think you believe that too deep inside. This is not a forever goodbye. I will always be with you, even when I can't be there physically (at least you have part of my wing on your possession, so you'll always have part of me physically close?). I also still have your birthday present to deliver, so… Until next time._

***

Jean ate very soggy and overcooked spaghetti that night, and the tomato sauce he put on it had too much salt. 

Jean's dramatic inner monologue said that the salt was for the tears he was _not_ going to shed for himself, but even Jean couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that.

***

That night, when he got into his bedroom and saw Marco’s house, he had to overcome the sudden urge to just _kick it._

***

He dreamed of walking through his empty apartment, and every room was filled with Apollo butterflies. None of the giant wings were attached to a miniature human, and after some time the red spots on their wings became fire and they all burned. 

Jean definitely had to go wash the snot and tears out of his face at three in the morning.

***

It didn't help that Jean was still on vacation, and had too much time to spent inside his apartment, alone. So he decided he wouldn'tspend his time in his apartment. 

But going out and walking around only meant that when his subconscious took over the direction his feet should go, he'd always ended up at a certain fountain. 

***

Jean saw a stand filled with pomegranates in the grocery shop and wanted to scream just a little bit. 

***

His vacation time was finally over, and having someone telling him what to do was _amazing_. 

Except for that time when his boss congratulated him for how little he was checking and using his phone now. That time was not exactly pleasant. Especially because his boss was acting very proud of him, and Jean just wanted to say that, “Yeah, I'm happy that a friend of mine went away without saying goodbye and I don't have a way to reach him anymore.”

Jean didn't say that, though. He liked being paid.

***

Jean was _not_ moping, okay, Armin?

He was working on his book a lot, it was just that. Not only had Jean been able to finish writing the plotline he wanted to follow, but he also had drafted the first five out of thirty-two chapters. He'd come home from the bookstore and work on his book immediately. Sometimes, he forgot to eat food until he was a bit lightheaded, but that was easily remedied by ordering take-out or just eating leftovers from his previous orders. He had a lot of food for someone with so little appetite. 

Nonetheless, that was the only reason why Jean wasn't active in the Discord channels anymore, _Armin_. Jean didn't really feel guilty about going into their whatever channel and sending a message only saying, “I'm alive” and then disappearing for the next four days. He was busy being productive, and his friends understood that. 

Well. 

Most of his friends. 

“I just don't think you're coping well.” Armin was saying to Jean after forcing him into accepting his fucking phone call. Currently, Jean had his head buried in his hand, and his phone in speaker mode was close enough to his ear that the traffic outside was just faint background noise. “And don't even try to bullshit me with your fake productivity. You are using the wrong motivation to write and later you're going to read what you've written and think it's garbage.”

“Wow, Armin, nice to see that you're trying to start in a new career!” Jean didn't even raise his head from the table, just spoke loud enough so that the words were intelligible. “I don't think you should pursue future telling, though. You're shit at it.”

“Jean, be serious for a moment. You need to talk and express your actual feelings. If not for me, then to a therapist or a journal, but just… pour that stuff onto something. How long has it been since you called your mom?”

“There are no feelings to be poured anywhere. Also, I don't need to call my mom. I'm peachy, my dude.”

“You're in denying, and also a _liar_.”

“Were you this good at name-calling when you were a kid? I'm impressed!”

“And I'm impressed that you still have the capacity to be this sarcastic with a broken heart.” Armin scoffed, and then Jean was able to hear him changing positions. “Your crush goes away and suddenly you increased your unpleasantness to 100.”

Jean almost didn't pay attention to the whole thing, because he had raised his head and was fixated on one single information Armin had just revealed. “Marco was not my crush.”

There was a stretched silence on the other side of the line. “You've _got_ to be kidding me.”

“I'm telling you, he was _not_.”

“Jean.” Armin's voice sounded too serious. “You've _got to be fucking kidding me._ ”

“I _am not_.” Jean sounded more dumbfounded and confused than anything else. “I've had a crush on Mikasa and it didn't feel like this. I've had loads of crushes in high school and none of them felt like this.”

Armin made a screeching noise that startled Jean. 

“I'm going to send you an article.” The only way Jean could describe Armin's voice was hysterical. Still, Jean didn't really understand where Armin's assumption was coming from. He did _not_ have a fucking crush on Marco. “You are going to read it and then tell me what you think of it.”

Armin hangs up before Jean could even finish saying, “What.” A few seconds later, Jean had received a DM from Armin with a fucking WikiHow article titled, “3 Ways to Know If You Like Your Friend Romantically”.

Jean felt like this was the stupidest idea, but he started to read it. 

***

Jean approached his reading with a “This is bullshit” attitude. 

Then he read the part where the article asked him to reflect if he enjoyed his crush’s company or if he wanted a deep emotional bond. Jean thought about it and, although he'd loved the times he spent with Marco, he liked it more when they were just talking about their opinions, their likes and dislikes… Basically, Jean loved to learn _anything_ about how Marco ticked. And he always wanted to know _more._

The part about being attracted was a bit weird. Jean really didn't notice much how physically attractive people were at all, but he could _definitely_ see how someone could find Marco hot (even though he was… Y'know. Bite-sized). He had that square jaw thing, high cheekbones, and an amazing pleasant personality to be around. Even when he'd decided to be a little shit. 

***

“Just thinking about them might make you feel excitement, anticipation, butterflies, longing and nervousness all at the same time.”

Butterflies. What a fucking shitty article. 

But Jeanwas actually just trying not to remember the victory dance he did that first day. Also, how he would wait for Marco's messages with a racing heart. All the warnings he got at work for checking his phone so much. 

_Fuck._

***

It was undeniable that Marco was someone Jean was deeply emotional around. It felt _good_ to watch funny stuff around Marco, to eat with him… It was like walking around with an emotions amplifier.

***

The jealousy part made Jean look deeply at how initially he wanted to rub into everybody's face that he'd met a fairy and then changed to wanting to keep Marco a secret. Jean was _so stupid_ for not seeing it for what it was. 

He grimaced when he remembered his embarrassing behavior in front of Armin. How did he not notice? _How did he not notice?_

***

“Keep track of how much time you spend together.”

_No time, dumb article. Not anymore._

***

Jean did indeed overlook some flaws Marco had. Especially when he was annoying, and Jean just couldn't be irritated at him. 

Oh, God. It was so fucking obvious. Jean wanted to be in the center of a matryoshka doll and ask someone to glue the other dolls shut so he would never see the light of day again. 

***

When the article told Jean to imagine confessing his feelings, to imagine how their relationship could potentially develop, to imagine them going on _dates_ , Jean just closed the tab and then stared at his bright screen for a little while. 

Honestly, he felt too dumb to process everything fully. It was a 180 turn on his life that he had not seen coming. 

The worst part about being aware of it was that now his brain would not fucking give him a break. 

So Jean thought it was appropriate to just send a single word for Armin as a reaction to this whole situation.

Jeanbo: _Shit_. 

***

At the end of the day, it didn't change shit, though. Jean was still alone and had feeble promise to hold onto. It wasn't a guarantee that he was going to see Marco ever again. 

Also, even if he did, how would this relationship work? Jean could lean in to kiss Marco and swallow his entire body. Cuddling sounded like something Jean could enjoy in a relationship, but anything physical with Marco sounded like it would be a challenge. Jean understood that there were people out there in relationships that weren't physical, but he didn't think that he wanted that. 

Another good thing to think about this possible relationship was that he didn't have any idea onhow the Fey dealt with relationships, or even if they thought it was okay to have this kind of interspecies relationship. 

One thing for sure was interesting; Jean's brain had jumped on the opportunity of being torturous in another sense now that Jean was finally aware of his own feelings. In his dreams, Marco was human-sized quite often, but sometimes it was Jean who was bite-sized. 

On both of those scenarios, his brain made them just snuggle or dance around in the air, flying, laughing, being _happy_. Together. 

It was ridiculous how Jean's heart would ache when he woke up. 

***

It didn't take long for the whole writing chat to catch up that Jean, although very productive, was being more standoffish than normal. 

At first, they clearly assumed that writing probably wasn't going well for Jean, and that was why he was much more depressing to talk to. Even worse of a tell was that Jean didn't take the bait to bicker with Eren anymore. 

After a while though, they started to get suspicious. Jean was still showing bits and pieces of his writing, so he was definitely still writing and probably being moderately satisfied with what he was producing. 

However, Jean was still morose and raining on everybody's parade. Not even _him_ was this much of a downer for this long. 

Connie and Sasha were the first to start nagging him about what was wrong. They took the annoying route, but unluckily for them, Jean just had to turn off notifications and soon they were tired of being ignored and started other subjects. 

Christa tried to make Jean open up to her through DMs. She was quickly dismissed and didn't insist. Jean knew that he'd been a little too dry with her, but then she was also dating Ymir. She could take it. 

And also-also, it wasn't really none of her business, so Jean didn't feel _that_ bad about being rude. Predictably, she made it clear that she was available to talk about anything if he wanted to, then she left him alone. 

Jean didn't have the opportunity to be approached by the others, because the next one to try anything (and succeed) was Eren. 

The sad thing was, Eren wasn't even prying. Jean had posted an excerpt of his work that was a bit depressing, and Eren was mocking him for writing y. He undid Jean with a single question, phrased quite clearly as a joke. 

notitansallowed: _What, did you get dumped or something?_

Jean started to type and then deleted the whole thing. He started again and then didn't feel like it was a good enough excuse. He did it at least four more times, sweating profusely as he watched the clock on his phone, and then he saw the dreaded _Eren is typing…_

notitansallowed: Holy _shit_ , I'm right?????? 

Jean didn't defend himself. He just turned his phone off and went to bed. 

He had to wake up early tomorrow for his shift and his phone was low on battery. It would charge faster off. 

That was the only reason. Definitely. 

***

Jean kept going away from the chat whenever someone tried to bring up anything even the tiniest bit related to the dumped subject. 

Jean just said that he hadn't been dumped, and left it at that. It wasn't a lie, after all. 

***

The days passed, Jean kept writing, and each day he felt more and more miserable. 

He had at least stopped looking at the tiny house in his bedroom and feeling like his heart got smaller. Jean didn't have the heart to move anything from its places. So Marco’s tiny wheelchair was still in his kitchen table, his crutches were on the living room floor, near the carpet, and the iPad, long dead, was still were Jean had left it on the couch that day, almost a whole month ago. 

It was insane that now Jean had had more consecutive days _without_ Marco in his life than _in_ his life. But he tried not to think too much about that. It wasn't productive.

One thing that he simply couldn't stop thinking about and checking constantly was the tiny piece of the butterfly wing that Marco had left behind. Since Jean hadn't taken any photos of Marco, he'd often catch himself thinking that he’d imagined the whole situation. Or maybe it was just a book he read a long time ago and couldn't remember the title, but definitely daydreamed about the plot a lot. 

To combat that, Jean just had to check the butterfly wing _constantly._ It was worse when his brain got stuck thinking about that at work though, because Jean would have to wait until his shift was over to actually check on the wing and be filled with that rush of relief. 

He quickly grew tired of having to work while his brain screamed nonsense at him, so Jean bought a locket pendant big enough and kept the wing inside of it. Jean didn't use the pendant on his neck, just kept it in his pocket, which was close enough for his nerves. 

Of course, he would've preferred to see _Marco_ instead of just a piece of him. He also knew it was weird to keep the butterfly wing _at all,_ especially when he thought about it as if he had a part of his other friends. For example, he doubted that he would keep one of Armin's teeth on him if Armin gave him one. He knew he probably would've thrown it away. 

Jean couldn't do it to Marco's wing though. 

***

Jean thought about downloading a countdown app to count how long since he'd last seen Marco because he was tired of doing it on his own head, but it didn't take him long to realize how pathetic that sounded. 

However, the good thing about how long it’d passed was that now he could go to the park where they met for the first time and not feel miserable. Well, not _too_ miserable. 

The weather had taken a sudden turn for the worse when a bird landed beside him on his bench. Jean was busy gazing intently at the fountain to notice at first, but then the bird croaked at him and he turned to look. 

It was the raven. Jean greeted him with a soft voice, and the raven tried to mimic it. Jean smiled at him for a few seconds, and then went back to gaze at the fountain. 

“I miss him,” Jean told the bird without looking at him, trying not to feel weird about talking a little bit to an _animal_. “I just… wished I had a way to actually talk to him. Ask if he was alright.”

The raven made a loud, annoyed croak, and then Jean watched it fly away. 

Jean sighed, his gaze going back to the fountain. At least Armin would be happy to know that he'd verbalized his feelings.

***

Verbalizing his feelings to a bird _actually_ helped. 

Jean now felt compelled to just say it to himself when something reminded him of Marco. Only when he was completely alone, of course. He didn't need to be judged by no one at this fragile moment of emotional vulnerability.

When he saw any fruit that he remembered Marco liked, like the fucking pomegranates, he'd say, “I miss Marco.”

When he had a dream about Marco, Jean would write it down and finish it with “I miss Marco”.

One day, he sat in his phones rereading their conversations for _hours,_ until he looked up and saw Marco's house. There was a tiny layer of dust on top of it now, and Jean promised to himself that he would clean it tomorrow. 

Later that night though, he felt like he had just enough energy to look at the house and say, “I wish you were back home, Marco. I miss you.”

Then he went to bed. It was late and even though he had a day off in the next day, he still just wanted to sleep now and mope less. 

Maybe he also wanted to see what his dreams would be like. Which was a new level of pathetic that he was _not_ going to analyze. 

***

Jean woke up the next day with someone knocking on his door. 

His first instinct was to tell his mom that he wanted _just_ five more minutes before his brain actually came back online and he stiffened. 

There was someone.

Knocking on his bedroom door. 

Inside his apartment. 

Which was on the fifth floor.

With a locked door. 

Jean's brain started to overheat from having to decide if he was going to stay in his bed trying to pretend he was still asleep, or if he was going to get up and fight whoever was the fucker. who invaded his home. Before he could decide, there was another knock on his door, and he flinched, not expecting it. And then his door _fucking opened_ on its own. 

Jean almost pissed on himself when he noticed how tall the shape of the person was. That was until the shape said, “Hello, Jean.”

Jean stopped breathing. He'd never heard that voice, but he knew to whom it belonged to. 

It was _Marco_. 

Fuck, it was _Marco._

Jean sprung from his bed, getting tangled in his sheets just a little bit, almost falling on his face trying to get out of his bedroom like a hurricane. Marco stumbled back a few steps so he could give Jean space to come out, but Jean was _not_ letting him go away. 

Jean threw his arms around Marco’s shoulder and hugged him. It didn't make any sense why he was so big, taller than Jean, but Jean wasn’t awake enough to question that, let alone ask what Marco was doing here, and _how_ he'd gotten there or anything like it. 

Marco laughed softly, and his puffs of air moved Jean's hair a bit. Jean was slowly waking up, but still having difficulty with wrapping his brain around what the fuck was happening.

In the end, his brain decided that was a good summary to start this conversation with, because Jean caught himself uttering, “What the _fuck_ , Marco” in an incredulous whisper. 

Marco laughed softly again, and said, “I was waiting for you to ask me to come back in front of my shrine.”

Oh God, his voice sounded _delicious._ Jean was almost getting his phone to record this delusional dream when he caught up with what Marco said. More specifically, the _shrine_ part. 

_“What._ ”

Marco gently guided them in the direction of the couch, and he, like Jean, seemed reluctant to let him go. When they were sitting down, Jean noticed with a startle that Marco _didn't have his wings._

“What happened to your wings?” Jean asked, horrified. 

“I don't have wings in this form apparently, but don't worry! They're fine.” Marco reassuring smile was even better in giant version. 

“Okay,” Jean said, and he couldn't keep his eyes from trying to absorb every detail from Marco's face. He’d never been able to tell before, but Marco had _freckles_ all over his face. Probably the rest of his body too, although Jean couldn't be sure because he was using normal human clothing. Jean was so _confused._ “Explain, _please_.”

“Well, do you mind if I only give you the short version right now?” Jean shook his head, and Marco grinned gently at him. Jean almost wished he hadn't, because his heart almost couldn'tstand it. “Great. You see, when you brought me into your home, hurt, you could've just left me to cure myself on my own. You didn't have to feed me, give me clothes, a way to move around, _a house_. All of these tiny gifts, given without the expectancy of a gift back, means something _very_ specific for us, magical creatures. These things can be interpreted as offerings, especially when they come from a human.”

“Yeah, but… a shrine?!” Jean said, still too incredulous to sound properly skeptical. “Isn't that a stretch for an adjective to describe the house I bought for you?

Marco shrugged. “The magic didn't think it was. The more offerings you gave me, the more magic I started to accumulate, and the quicker I healed.”

“But… You said you healed fast!

“Not that fast, Jean. It was two weeks and some days, almost three weeks.” Marco shook his head and took Jean's hands to be sandwiched between his. “I wasn't absolutely certain that that was what was happening, but everybody knows of the possibilities. It wasn't until I got back to the mound and everybody could sense how much more powerful I was that I started to actually believe in the dots I had connected earlier.”

“So now what are you?”

“A house deity.”

“A god,” Jean said, in a deadpan voice. Marco made a face. 

“Not really a god,” Marco explained. “I don't have the big number of followers that gods usually attract. That's why I'm a _house deity._ Because I'm connected to a specific home. Yours.”

“Because I worshipped you?”

“Sort of, yes.”

“I _made_ you a god?”

Marco grimaced once more. 

“Again, not a god.”

 _I made him a god_ , Jean thought, trying to wrap his head around that idea. _All the stuff I bought to make him more comfortable was interpreted by magic as offerings. Because I worship him. And made him a god._

Jean made a high-pitched noise without opening his mouth. 

“Jean. Talk to me.”

“Build God, and then we'll talk,” Jean said automatically and then started to laugh. It was a bit hysterical, but we genuinely thought that had been funny. Marco was making a confused face at him though, and Jean felt bad for him. For his _god_. “It's the title of an emo song. Don't worry about it, I'll show you later.”

Marco smiled at him, and Jean hysteria melts away. “Are you fine with this, so?”

“What ‘this’ are you talking about?”

“About me being a house deity in your home.”

“Well, what will I have to do from now on?”

Marco shrugged with an expression of nonchalance. “The same things you did before. Feed me, talk to me. That should be enough.”

“If I ask you for stuff, you can grant it to me?”

“I'm not a djinn, Jean.”

Jean wrinkled his nose, and pretended to think about it. “I guess I'm okay with you being my private god.”

Marco sighed, finally releasing the hands Jean had already forgotten Marco had been holding.

“For the last time, _not_ a god.” Marco's voice made it clear he was aware that that joke was going to be repeated in the future a lot and he didn't look like he was looking forward to it. 

“We need to come up with a name for this religion.”

“That’s not necessary!”

“Yes, it is! How are the other house deities going to treat you seriously if your followers don't even have a fan name? You'd be the butt of so many jokes! That's unacceptable.”

“I can't tell if you're being serious or not.” Marco sounded pained, and Jean couldn't control himself. He laughed out loud for the first time in a while, and felt not even a little bit weird doing it. “Can't believe I'm going to have to deal with this until the end.”

That made Jean sober up real quick. 

“Till the end of what?”

Marco looked at Jean like that was a stupid question. After a few seconds, something finally decided to work in Jean's brain. 

Death. Marco was talking about death. Probably _Jean's_ death because Jean didn't know if Marco was immortal, but who knew. Definitely not Jean, so he quickly changed the subject. 

“Are you staying then?”

“If you don't mind.” Marco suddenly became sheepish, trying to make himself smaller on the couch. 

Jean thought about all the times he'd been miserable in the last few days. He thought about how much heartache he'd felt without Marco here, and Jean really didn't wanna go back to it. 

So he smiled at Marco and said, “No. I don't mind at all.”

Marco smiled back at here, but a much larger and shinier smile. Jean wouldn't think it was unfathomable to assume there was magic behind that smile to make it so beautiful.

Then Jean remembered a very important piece of a promise. “Hey, what about my birthday gift?”

Marco blushed, and Jean wanted to take a picture of it. It was so cute. _Too_ cute. 

“Well, you see…”

“Don't tell me you forgot it back at home!”

“No, I didn't!” Marco’s face was almost enough to make Jean laugh. He was so comically offended that Jean even _thought_ that he would forget his present. “It's just that the present isn't exactly _physical_. Well, it is, but it's not… Portable.”

Jean squinted at Marco, trying to figure it out. “...Go on.”

“Well, you see…” Marco squirmed a bit, and then took a deep breath, eyes looking up suddenly and staring straight into Jean's. “There are lots of things that carry much more symbology than meets the eye. Symbols are important to give a deeper meaning to a tradition, a belief, a cultural standard. However, there's one symbol that's been used to seal accords of various kinds, especially between us magical folks.”

Jean's first thought was “a handshake”. Followed closely by, “a pen to sign a contract”. His brain was working overtime trying to figure out what Marco meant before he could finish it. Jean actually had something in mind but didn't want to believe it was it. It would be _too_ perfect, and then sort of stuff didn't happen outside of fairy tales. 

“A kiss.”

 _Fuck_ , that sort of stuff _did_ happen outside of fairy tales. 

“You want to give me a kiss as a birthday gift.”

“It’s a very important gift, you see.” Marco fidgeted for a few seconds. “It's meant to show that you won't be the only one worshipping in this deal. As much as you take care of me and strengthen our bond, I will promise with this kiss to do the same for you.”

Jean was _not_ dumb. He was nervous, definitely, but he was not going to pass the opportunity to _kiss his fucking crush, dammit._ Not even with if he had bad breath because he just woke up. He would also deal with the emotional migraine later. 

Marco seemed to understand that Jean was on-board with it because he was smiling again (Jean had an internal monologue that was just one very long ohmygodohmygodohmygod chanting) and cradling Jean's face in his gigantic hands. 

The kiss was sweet, long and had tongue. Jean made a note in his brain to ask Marco later what symbol the tongue represented when he finally noticed that this kiss had _definitely_ been going for quite a while, and neither of them seemed inclined to stop it. 

Actually, Jean decided to _incline_ his body on top of Marco's, who didn't have any complaints. In reality, Marco took his hands away from Jean's face to put them around Jean's waist, bringing Jean even closer.

Jean was breathless, but he would be damned if he stopped this kiss first. Marco seemed to remember that breathing was an important thing, and started to trail kisses down Jean's neck, which made Jean shiver.

“How many things are you promising there?” Jean asked breathily. 

“All of the things,” Marco replied in a husky voice, making Jean smirk.

“Is this promise thing going to be a one time deal? Or are you going to make me promises very often?”

“I'm going to promise you _so much stuff, so often,_ ” Marco groaned,and went back to kissing Jean’s mouth. They kept kissing until they both had puffy lips, and they'd've continued if Jean's stomach hadn't growled loudly. They snickered to themselves, but Jean got up to go make breakfast, dragging Marco with him by the hand. They had a lot to talk about. 

Jean didn't let go of Marco for the entire morning. ***

The first person Jean told about Marco was, obviously, Armin (who screeched like a pterodactyl).

Then he told the entire writing chat, and that went downhill pretty fast. They were worse than fifth graders.

Then Jean told his mom, whose only answer was, “Finally you found someone not related to you by blood willing to put up with your bullshit.”

They bickered for a bit, but mostly it was his mom complaining about how sickly _happy_ he sounded. Then, in a moment of sobriety, his mother asked, “I'll make you both a piece of jewelry as a present. What do you want?”

Jean thought about telling his mom that it was _definitely_ too early. He thought about saying that it would be too expensive, it was not really necessary since neither of them used jewelry, but then he thought about it. And the more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that it was a good thing to bring into their really _new_ relationship. 

Whatever happened, Marco would be Jean's home deity. It would be nice to have a new symbol that connected them both so obviously.

So Jean smiled to his phone, and told his mom. “Whatever you feel like making. We would love it if had an Apollo butterfly on it, though.”

**Author's Note:**

> Visit my tumblr! I'm also polzkadotz there.
> 
> Thank you for reading! English is not my first language since I'm Brazilian, so if you were bothered by a typo, you can tell me about it! If you have any questions too, leave them down here. If you think I should've tagged something and didn't, tell me what it is. If you have afflictions and need to vent, you can also do that. I'll be lurking around and replying to all of you :D


End file.
